Subjects: Net zero, American beef imports
E&OE
STARTS: 9.48am
ENDS 9.56am
GEORGIE BURGESS
First sitting week, still a lack of discussions about supporting farmers and drought funds and things like that. What are you making of discussions so far?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Our farmers are under attack like never before. Just today we’ve had an announcement by Amanda Rishworth, of all people, talking about us importing American beef, beef that has been slaughtered in Canada and Mexico and coming into Australia. Our quality of beef is way beyond anything elsewhere in the world and our farmers don’t need any biosecurity risks. We’ve seen farmers Binalong and Bowning under pressure because of 90 260-metre-tall wind towers being proposed on that little idyllic peaceful farmland part of the southern New South Wales, the Yass Valley. This is simply not good enough. And then of course, no word on drought. I’ve written to Minister Julie Collins months ago, I’ve yet to receive a response. Just crickets. This Labor government doesn’t care about our farmers. There’s no money for infrastructure for regional Australia. This affects disproportionately our farmers because the roads aren’t being upgraded, the roads aren’t being updated and pretty soon we’ll be back in harvest and those heavy trucks will be on very shoddy, inferior roads trying to get the grain to silos, trying to get the grain to storage and they’re going to be driving on dangerous roads. So, our farmers are under attack like never before, and it’s simply not good enough when our farmers growing the food and fibre, keep our balance of payments, keep this nation’s coffers ticking over and they’re just being ignored, they’re being snubbed.
GEORGIE BURGESS
With this change in the beef importations, are you worried about what this could set a precedent for and what will come next for our farmers?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well indeed, what next? Will we be importing all manner of things to place our biosecurity at risk? This is simply not good enough. Our biosecurity, we’ve placed such an emphasis on it, funding has dissipated. This Government does not care about our farmers. We have to have, every person who comes into Australia on a plane has to fill out a card, if they’ve been on a farm overseas, they have to have their shoes checked. And yet all of a sudden it’s okay to import beef from America, beef that may have been processed in Mexico. I mean this is placing our biosecurity at risk and the Government can’t give the guarantees. They cannot lighten our biosecurity, they must have it as strong as possible, as strong as in the past.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Do you think this is showing that Labor doesn’t have a priority of farmers in mind? They are just thinking about the metro areas and money and deals with America and things like that?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
What the Prime Minister should be doing is having a face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump. Don’t just do this around the periphery, don’t just do this via e-mails, don’t just place our farmers at risk, have a meeting. This is showing his shortcomings. The fact that he cannot get a meeting, he can get a meeting with Xi Jinping, but he can’t get a meeting with President Trump. We can’t allow our biosecurity to be placed at risk. We can’t put our farmers up to this sort of threat. We simply can’t. It’s simply not good enough and The Nationals won’t stand for it.
GEORGIE BURGESS
And we’ve seen a lot of discussion about net zero coming out over the last few days. Where are we moving with that? What are you thinking?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I’m not going to stand back and say nothing while the community’s just ridden roughshod over by shysters and spivs who come in, who offer beads and blankets to country communities to divide families, divide friendships and relationships that have been going for generations, it’s simply not good enough. When you’ve got as many wind towers and the proliferation of solar factories right across my electorate, you’ve got to push back. These are the people who send me to Canberra to be their voice. I am the voice of the voiceless when it comes to this. And if net zero has to go, as a result, well so be it. Nobody in Rozelle or Toorak or anywhere else in metropolitan Australia would put up with having 90 260-metre tall wind towers in their backyards with the reverberation constantly preventing them from getting to sleep, right in their eye shot as they walk out their door and have their barbecues. They wouldn’t put up with it. Why should country people? Country people who’ve worn the heavy burden for lowering emissions, our farmers, our country communities, we’ve worn all this. I’m not against renewables, I’m not, but in the right place at the right time and Binalong and Bowning are not the right place and certainly now is not the right time.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Are they putting profits over people?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Of course they are. I mean, it’s net zero at the expense of our country people. And some people are reaping millions out of this. And let me tell you, none of them are in country Australia, or very few of them. What they do is they ask one person to sign a contract, and they might, or they do, and yet the next-door neighbour are not. And so, in years to come when that person might have gained a little bit out of this, they’re going to have to decommission these huge windtowers, these massive amounts of solar panels, which at the moment aren’t being accepted by many local councils or landfill. And at the moment, a lot of it, a lot of the proportion of these solar panels are not recyclable. Now people can go, and fact check it all they like, but they are simply not. And so, this is causing hurt and anguish amongst country people. It’s having a terrible effect on their mental health. It’s also having an effect on their land values, up to a third of their land value has been devalued by having this massive proliferation of renewable projects. And with the situation at Mangoplah, we’ve got the Langfields who have been told by their local rural fire service that they won’t come and put the fire out if the Battery Energy Storage System catches a blaze because of the toxicity of the flames. Now when you’ve got volunteers who would rush into harm’s way to put out a fire saying, “No, no, we’re not going there because of our future prospects of our health,” then you’ve got a really alarming situation. It’s all right for Chris Bowen to get up and mock me in Parliament and to mock Barnaby Joyce, but at least we’re having a crack on behalf of the people who send us here. I mean, Chris Bowen can make a mockery of it, and I appreciate the Labor Government has a mandate, but they don’t have a mandate to ruin regional Australia. They do not. And regional Australians have had a gutful of this. They’re sick to their back teeth of being told what they should do, how they should do it, having their houses devalued, having their farms devalued and paying through the nose for power prices. It should be all about affordability of power and Labor has not addressed that. They’ve not addressed it for factories, farms, but every ordinary, everyday, ordinary Australians, they simply haven’t done that. And people are paying through the nose for power, and, you know, in a very cold Winter, even city people like to be able to pay for power bills.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Anything else?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I think that will do.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Great, thanks.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thank you very much, Georgie.