THE HON. KEVIN HOGAN MP

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR PAGE
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE NATIONALS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE, INVESTMENT AND TOURISM

‍‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP

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

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

TOPICS: The Nationals "Cheaper, Better and Fairer" plan to reduce emissions

E&OE

JAYNIE SEAL:

Returning to our top story, and it was a unanimous decision on scrapping net zero by The Nationals. They're not walking away from reducing emissions.

Joining us live is the Deputy Nationals Leader, Kevin Hogan, and Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Dr Anne Webster. Thank you both so much for joining us. So, can I start with you Kevin first of all - so yes, the big takeaway that I got was that you're not walking away from lowering emissions. Tell us more.

KEVIN HOGAN:

Yeah. Look, we want to have - we want to lower emissions. We think that's a really important part of what governments do. So, the room was unanimous on that, so we looked we are looking to lower emissions.

We're looking though to lower emissions in line with the OECD average. So, we will lower our emissions as much as the OECD countries will. At the moment, Labor's policy will have us about three times faster than what the OECD countries will do.

And what does that mean, Jaynie? That means a lot more cost will be borne by Australian businesses and Australian families and Australian budgets.

So, we think our way in doing this will be a lot cheaper, a lot better, and a lot fairer.

So, there's other things about how we're going to do this, about how we're going to lower prices, and how we're going to lower emissions. But, again, we think Labor's renewables only is very reckless policy. We saw Tomago just in the last week say that they can't afford their energy bill and looked like shutting in a couple of years.

We've had bailouts to a lot of industry across this country in the last two or three months. We've got families who can't afford their energy bills. And what that screams out, Jamie, is this we have an issue in this country, and today's announcement is about addressing that.

JAYNIE SEAL:

And Dr Anne Webster, we've spoken about this numerous times. It's ripping communities apart.

These renewables going into prime agricultural land, which is ripping up 7.2 million hectares of the agricultural land. David Littleproud saying that there's another 5.1 hectares to be lost potentially as well. Talk us through that.

ANNE WEBSTER:

Look, Jaynie, you're right. We've talked about this many times, and my regional community will be very happy that we have come to this position.

We're not in government, so we can't make those changes that we would like to make now, that addresses an all-renewables ideological approach which Labor has. We want to see sensible policy that certainly addresses emissions.

But first and foremost, we want to see cheaper, better, and fairer energy policy that reduces people's power bills, that addresses the pressure on our farmers right now, that is pushing them to want to leave their land because renewables only means that it's ag land and of course our forests that are being taken up. It's just not fair.

JAYNIE SEAL:

Kevin, also whatever the Liberal party decides your team will respect. How important is it for people in the city to understand what's going on in the regions?

KEVIN HOGAN:

Yeah, well there's a lot more pressure obviously on the regions with what Labor's policy is doing. I mean their renewable rollout is dividing communities or the wind turbines or the solar factories obviously causing havoc through regional Australia as well.

The shutdown of heavy industry or the bailouts that are happening obviously in regional Australia as well. So, we've been hit very hard, by Labor's policy which is why we wanted an alternative for the Australian public to consider.

As far as the Liberal Party go, they have given us a lot of room and space to independently come as we are sovereign independent party from them to come to our position, and we are going to do likewise.

And we know they're going through a process. We think they're getting towards the end of their process as well. And we will work very consultatively with them to find out where we agree, where we may disagree, and how we can land somewhere, that can work. But look, we respect their process. We know they respect our process.

But look, as regional Australians, as people who represent regional Australia, what we are doing today, what we are announcing today, we think is exceptionally important for people in our communities who are at risk of losing their jobs and can't afford their power bills.

JAYNIE SEAL:

Gotta wrap it up, but in ten seconds, Anne, are you concerned that it could potentially lose votes for the coalition?

ANNE WEBSTER:

Look I certainly hope not. Obviously, this is this is politics. This is about marketing. It's how we talk about these issues. We have a commonsense approach, and we will be working very hard to ensure that that message gets to our metro constituents and that we can sell this as very sensible policy moving forward.

JAYNIE SEAL:

Thank you both so much for joining us.

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