Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I want to give a big shout-out to primary producers from my home state of Victoria and the state of New South Wales. Some have been up since 1 am. They got on buses and travelled thousands of kilometres to make sure this place knows what they are going through in areas far, far away, in areas that many in this chamber and the other won't have ever heard of, places like Boort, Rupanyup, Saint Arnaud, Charlton, Donald—I could go on and on, but I know there's limited time. I just want to give a huge shout-out. There are 60 farmers—and I can see the next generation of primary producers in the pram in the gallery!—here representing thousands that could not actually take the time off property to come up. Thank you. We hear you. And we know that you are making your presence felt right across the parliament today.

The big hoax is that net zero was going to be net zero pain. The reality is that certain people and certain industries are going to do much more of the heavy lifting than others in Australia, and those opposite didn't want to have that conversation. It was the coalition—the Liberal Party and particularly the National Party—who said: 'It's not going to be net zero pain. There are going to be certain communities and certain industries that are going to be more heavily impacted—high energy-intensive industries such as manufacturing, agriculture and the like.' That's why we put forward, along with our plan for net zero by 2050, a plan to support these communities, to seize and harness the opportunities that that transition will bring and to overcome the challenges. This is support that the Labor Party cut in their first budget, in October.

We now know the communities that have come to Canberra today are just the first tranche of 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines crisscrossing this country as we electrify everything from our cars to our cooktops. We pull wind farms and solar farms right across our beautiful prime agricultural land, and no-one is talking about what that's going to do for food production and what that's actually going to do for food security not just for us—we explore 80 per cent of what we grow—but for the countries that purchase it. We are not against renewables. We are not against a net zero by 2050 position, but it has to be fair, and there has to be an acknowledgement that the impact is going to be felt differently for some people.

I just want to go to the former chief scientist's view of the future:

Think forests of wind farms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky. Think endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage in the desert.

This is Finkel, who's no stranger to transition to net zero, telling people of the reality of what that will actually look like, which is something that this parliament hasn't wanted to actually grapple with. What are we going to do with prime agricultural land? What are we going to do with private property rights? What about biodiversity and the impact of these transmission lines, not just on primary producers and their communities but on the water tables, on the ecology of systems where they're being put? What is the social licence?

You on that other side can sneer, but do you know what is actually happening? You are purchasing land. You are absolutely not giving landholders the right to appeal. There is not fair consultation or compensation. That is actually what's happening. These are sensible questions that a house of review in a liberal democracy like ours should be able to ask.

We've sat here for two hours and listened to all the reports the Senate has delivered today on a vast variety of topics of interest to people here and outside in the community. But the nine million of us who do not live in capital cities deserve to have the interests of our communities investigated by this place. And for the fourth time we come to the Senate and we say: 'Please hear us. We're on the renewable journey. We want sustainable communities and a sustainable future. Why don't you just let us have the conversation and let people come and put their views forward?'

So to Barry, Batters, Bill, Glenda, Jason, Marcia and all the others, thank you so much. These are the faces and places that actually have to deal with the impact of the decisions that are made in this chamber, because we're not carpeting Brunswick with solar panels and wind farms and we're not carpeting Kooyong. No, no: they can afford their $60,000 electric vehicles, but the people that produce our food and the people that back our capacity as a nation to do stuff are the ones left picking up the pieces. All they're asking is that this chamber agree to hold an inquiry so we can understand the impacts and make some recommendations to government that will mean the next tranche of rolling out these transmission lines across this country will be better than what's happening now. I commend this motion to the Senate.