Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's perhaps no more important role in our nation than that of our farmers. We eat and we are clothed every day because of these hardworking men and women. Our farmers take huge risks every year with no guaranteed financial return, yet our government—both sides of this chamber, in my opinion—deliberately punish them with their crazy climate agenda. That's what it is.

Teal voters on Sydney's North Shore would be outraged if you suggested that a solar panel might take up a corner of their beloved dog park, but those same voters, urged on by the climate fanatics that they send to Canberra, don't think twice about tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission lines being installed across prime agricultural land, massive wind turbines, huge solar farms, increasing restrictions on vehicles, forced water buy-backs, banned live exports and emission reduction targets aimed at livestock. If you're a farmer, the attacks from your own government just never end. The irony, of course, is that it is our farmers who we rely on to feed our nation. It is our farmers whom the government insists must bear the greatest burden of so-called climate action. It is worse than unfair. It's stupid. It's mean. It's self-destructive.

On a sidenote, why do we call these things 'renewable energy'? What is renewable about Chinese made solar panels which need to be installed and then replaced regularly or wind turbines which also need to be rebuilt every couple of decades? Where do these things go at the end of their useful life? Into landfill. There's nothing renewable about renewable energy—far from it. I'll tell you what is renewable, though: the cost. That's what's renewable. The government keep telling us that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. I don't know about that. Have you checked your power bill? Have you checked it? They keep going up.

Our farmers already carry this nation on their back. They should not have to shoulder net zero as well, which I will add is nothing but a wealth transfer. It has nothing at all to do with the environment. If you care about the environment, how about you stop plastic going into the ocean? How about you stop pesticides and chemicals running off into the ocean? How about you do that? How about you stop cutting down old-growth forests? Those are real environmental things. Net zero has nothing to do with this—nothing at all.

It's difficult enough being a farmer in this country with ridiculous cultural heritage laws piled upon the red tape that's piled upon the green tape that restricts everything that they do, and don't get me started on the taxes.

If inner-city elites really want to walk to work, cancel their overseas flights, sit at home in the dark or suck on soggy paper straws laced with forever chemicals to 'save the planet'—good luck to them! But the same people should remember that the soybeans and lentils they love to consume so much are grown by the blood and the sweat and the tears of hardworking farmers.

What our primary producers need from this government—both sides, Left and Right—is to just get the heck out of the way. Let them do their darn jobs. Let our farmers farm. At the end of the day, this is the problem—too much government, not enough freedom. You can apply that line to absolutely everything. Government is always, always the problem.