Shadow Minister for Regional Health, Shadow Minister for Regional Communications - Member for Mallee - Transcript - News24 - Chris Kenny - Thursday 6 August 2026

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‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL HEALTH

SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

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TOPICS: ABC apology to Gina Rinehart, editorial standards, government leadership, Labor’s renewables-only energy policy, fines for farmers opposing transmission lines, farmer property rights, AI data centre energy demand, Labor’s hypocrisy on greenhouse gas emissions, Energy Minister’s flights

Kenny  

Let's catch up now with the Shadow Regional Health Minister Anne Webster. She joins us live from Mildura. Thanks for joining us, Anne. I want to get you first on the ABC and this belated apology from Hugh Marks. Why has it taken so long? And doesn't that show that they don't seem to understand common decency at the national broadcaster?

Webster  

Well, you know we've got a saying out in the regions, which I think actually is said in the cities as well, Chris, and that is it doesn't pass the pub test. And the ABC needs to ask itself: Do their actions actually pass the pub test? We're asked it on a frequent basis as politicians. The ABC needs to get a clear-eyed look about whether the things that they do would pass the pub test, particularly out in my electorate, because I can tell you what I don't believe it would to take as long as it has for Hugh Marks to make an apology - apology of sorts - and to take down that vile video is just unbelievable. But the other point I would make, Chris, is where is the Prime Minister of Australia is having a holiday? No, where is the Labor Party calling out the ABC and saying you need to take that down?

Kenny  

Yeah, there's absolutely the government has been pathetic. The Prime Minister does deserve condemnation because he wasn't on leave for the first couple of weeks of this controversy. He's away now, but I thought he's the one to say that you shouldn't disappear when you're on leave. He could easily make a statement on this. It was weak - been really weak, of the government not to demand an apology. It's hands off the ABC because that's basically the official propaganda arm of the green left. It's pathetic. Let's go on to another one of those Labor frontbenchers who is very much pushing the green-left line, and that's Chris Bowen. We heard from him yesterday at the National Press Club, and he's doubling down on his renewables push and his net zero push, and this affects people in your region in particular. We've talked to you before about transmission lines in Western Victoria going through properties against the wishes of landholders, and now we learn that some of those farmers have been fined by the Victorian government for not allowing the transmission experts onto their properties, I mean, what's going on here? Do they not have rights over their own land?

Webster  

Look, well, clearly not - in Labor's eyes, ‘What's yours is mine.’ You know, that's how they operate. What we have is farmers who have been standing their ground on their right to farm, and Australians, everybody I speak to, backs our farmers. They do not back the Victorian Labor government, who have imposed this legislation which doesn't permit farmers to take the Victorian government or VicGrid or any of the other bodies to VCAT. I mean, how on earth? We live in a democracy, last time I checked, and they've imposed these fines and demand that they can come onto farmers' properties. Now, farmers speak to me about the fact that these VicGrid people want to come onto their property. No understanding of biosecurity, no care or concern for their lambing ewes, which is what's going on, and they are being fined now. The farmers are being fined $814, I think it is, for refusing to allow access to VicGrid, and if they don't pay it, and if they continue to say we don't want you on our properties, they will be charged, and they will be fined $12,000. I mean, Ben Carroll is new in the job, but I tell you what, it's the same old, same old. Those fines came out four days after he was elected to the role of premier.

Kenny  

Extraordinary stuff, and it's all driven, of course, by Labor's obsession with renewables: expensive, unreliable renewables. And Chris Bowen yesterday was doubling down on this, incredibly, putting renewables electricity conditions on AI companies who might want to invest in data centres in Australia, have a look at this.

Bowen  

Our requirements are very clear that data centres must bring their own additional renewables if they have sensible firming arrangements with gas as part of that. That's fine. I don't envisage it being needed very often. That's the good news, but it'll be important when it is needed. So, I think that's a particularly common sense approach that gas can be included, but it must support a clear commitment to new additional 100% renewables.

Kenny  

This is extraordinary, and here you have people, big companies wanting to invest big dollars in Australia and and help our economy. We need them. We want them. Instead of saying come in and just use our electricity, ‘we don't have enough’, so they have to provide their own electricity. But renewable electricity ... in the United States, the equivalent companies are actually building nuclear power stations that benefit everyone. This bloke is going to force them to build unreliable renewables.

Webster  

Well, and he doesn't think they're going to need to use gas that often. Newsflash, Chris Bowen, we're still using 60 per cent, at least, coal every day. I mean, this man is doing more for conservative politics than any other in the Labor Party. I say, keep rattling on! The same agenda, the same ideology, honestly, they are destroying the country. And the more Australians that realise that and recognise that, and how  disgraceful it is, the more chance there is that we will have a change of government at the next election.

Kenny  

Well, I tell you what, on electricity alone, it just has to happen soon. They are literally destroying our energy foundation in this country. It's incredible to see it. But at the same time, mind you, because this is Chris Bowen and the rest of them think that they can save the planet. At the same time, Chris Bowen doesn't mind flying around the world, chugging out the carbon footprint from his jet plane to the tune of the last count was $345,000 of taxpayers' money spent on his travel. This is outrageous.

Webster  

And don't we feel so much holier for him doing that? I don't think so. $345,000 of taxpayer money-that's a problem in itself. And as you rightly point out, and I was thinking about it today, you know those fumes in the air. Well, apparently they don't make any difference to our carbon emissions? For those who are really panic-stricken about it, it actually is - in nice parallel with the fact that this Labor government is really happy to export our uranium to India, to export our coal to China, to export our gas to Japan, and yet you know we can't use the uranium, and they don't want us using the coal, and they are, hands tied behind their back, up their back, for us to use gas, as Chris says, you know, he doesn't think that we'll have to use too much of that.  

Kenny  

It is insane. Thanks for joining us, Anne. I appreciate it. A little bit of common sense from Anne Webster there in Mildura.

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