I’d like to give a shoutout first up to the regional Australians who answered the call I made last column to tell the Albanese Labor Government their harebrained idea to potentially slash default speed limits from 100 km/h to as low as 70 km/h.  Common sense has prevailed and Labor quietly binned the idea last Friday.

Regrettably, regional Australians are finding they must learn political activism because the Albanese and Allan Labor Governments simply don’t care about the regions.

Mallee farmers have discovered the necessity to follow the protest playbook to stop their farms being railroaded by VicGrid – the fancy name for one of the tentacles of the Allan Labor Government – into forced access onto farmers’ land.  I applaud the 50 or so farmers who stood in solidarity with their neighbour to peacefully protest last Friday.

I published Mallee’s Biggest Survey’s results this last week where, among many other responses that concur with The Nationals’ policy positions, the majority of 5,300 Mallee residents said they stand with the farmers on their property rights.  While there are some farmers who have accepted the offer made by energy project developers - and that is their right - there are others who have every right to say no and stand up for their rights.

The Nationals stand for a Cheaper, Better, Fairer energy policy on our pathway to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Australians have already reduced emissions at twice the rate of the rest of the developed world, let alone India and China whose emissions continue to grow.  There is no merit in streaking ahead of the pack in what is a distance race, not a sprint.  The cost-of-living impact of Minister Bowen’s energy vanity project is eye-watering – up 39 per cent since Labor adopted net zero.  A Mallee pensioner shared her year-on-year power bill, up 130 per cent in just one year.

I encourage readers to type powering.au into their browser to read all the facts and find out more about our Cheaper, Better, Fairer Energy plan.  We can grow jobs and our economy and reduce emissions at the same time.