‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TERRITORIES
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

TOPICS:

Question Time, Net zero, regional development, transmission lines, agricultural land, Nationals leadership

KENNY 

Let's go back down to Canberra now and catch up with Anne Webster, who's Shadow Minister for Regional Development. Good to talk to you again, Anne. How did Sussan Ley go in her first question time as Opposition Leader? Do you reckon she didn't really get to focus on tax the way she wanted to?

WEBSTER 

Look, it's just going to be fun and games, is all I can say for the next three years. However, I'm sure Sussan is up for it, and same with those of us who are left in the House to fight bad policy. That's what this is all about. We want to see Australians do better, and bad policy is not a way to achieve that. So, I think Susan did fabulously, and likewise with her MPI statement that she made following Question Time. And I think, you know, Labor's biggest trouble Chris will be fighting their own hubris.

KENNY 

Yeah, sure, and taxation is a big issue for them, but at the moment: you're talking about fighting bad policy, is the commitment to net zero by 2050 bad policy?

WEBSTER 

I'm glad you asked me. I've just completed a huge survey across my electorate, and 5000 people so far have responded, and net zero is one of the questions that we've asked, and while I haven't completed all data analysis, just to be clear, I certainly have a pretty good understanding of where my electorate sits on net zero. Let's remember, I'm here to represent my electorate, and my electorate is certainly not in favour of net zero. On the whole, a vast majority, around sixty, over 60% and I think there are many reasons for that, Chris, some of the things that you've already alluded to earlier in your program, you already know that my electorate has been railroaded, steamrolled, flattened with Labor's persistence on this ideological target, which includes hundreds of kilometres of transmission lines that becomes the artery for all the projects for wind and solar, which ultimately are on arable agricultural land. That's a huge problem.

KENNY 

It's a massive issue for your area and many areas like it around the country. Politics always comes to play in these issues with two former Nationals leaders leading this charge. It puts the pressure on David Littleproud to go along with it, or he could face some sort of leadership challenge. Here's former leader Michael McCormack on leadership aspirations today:

McCORMACK

The only thing I haven't done is put my name through my leadership ambitions forevermore. Why would I do that? But David Littleproud is the leader.

KENNY 

They're going to back him, but it means he has to really go with this opposition to net zero, doesn't it? Otherwise all hell will break loose?

WEBSTER 

Look, the net zero issue, let's be really frank, is a hot topic in our party room. We have some very strong views, obviously, two of them have been made known today. Matt Canavan has been absolutely outspoken - a lot of us have been and my views have certainly not been silent. While I haven't been raising them on the front page of The Australian, nonetheless we as a party have committed ourselves to go through a process which looks at all of the data, looks at what it will mean for us as Australians, as a nation, but also in our regional seats, because we, as Chris Minns said yesterday, are the ‘sacrifice’, and you know - good that he knows that better than Victoria, who simply don't acknowledge that at all, and so we want to ensure that net zero does not cost us as a nation. Frankly, at this point in time, I can't see how we will not bear the brunt of this on our bills into the future, forever and we will not be better off for it.

 KENNY

Can't say I disagree with you. Thanks for joining us, Anne. Hopefully they'll come down with that review as soon as possible. Anne Webster there, who's the Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Member there in Victoria for The Nationals.

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