James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My parents were farmers. My grandparents were farmers. My great-grandparents were farmers. If you go to my office, you will see an old milk can and you'll see some old K-knives up on the wall. So yesterday, standing alongside Peter Dutton and David Littleproud, I was proud to be able to look those farmers in the eye and tell them that we supported them—a simple message but a truthful one—because, under this Albanese Labor government, our farmers and our regional communities are having their lives destroyed and their way of life destroyed, and the explanation from Labor and the Greens is just radio silence. It's disgusting, it's disgraceful and it's wrong.

Yesterday, farmers who spent thousands of dollars to get here to Canberra, especially those from WA, to have a conversation about the very essence of their existence received absolutely nothing from our Prime Minister. He was a no-show, and it's not a surprise because this government has been a no-show when it comes to our rural, regional and remote communities. No Labor MP and no Greens MP went out the front of this building to talk to those farmers. They all hid inside here and stayed in their offices—these politicians who think that food comes from a fridge, from a cupboard or from a restaurant that they eat in; these politicians who do not understand that, if we do not have farmers, then we will not have food to feed our people and, as importantly, we will not be able to export our food to help feed the region. Our farmers want some common sense, and they'll only get that under a coalition government.