SPEECH
Thank you, Xavier for your leadership over the past four years.
And congratulations to Rebecca (Rebbeca Reardon).
Thank you to everyone for having me here today.
Can I acknowledge my colleagues in the room:
The Leader of NSW Nationals Gurmesh Singh,
The Shadow Minister for Agriculture Brendan Moylan,
Shadow Minister for Water Steph Cooke,
Richie Williamson,
Michael Kemp,
Sarah Mitchell,
Scott Barrett,
Wes Fang, and
Dugald Saunders.
I am proud to work alongside my Nationals colleagues every day.
Many of them who have farming backgrounds, including Gurmesh.
We are a united team.
Ready for government with a clear plan to build a stronger NSW.
Not many of you in the room know me well.
Even though I am the Member for Vaucluse, representing one the most densely populated communities in the state, I am a country girl at heart.
I grew up in regional South Australia.
First on the west coast, where my dad was an insurance salesman for regional and rural communities.
So I spent a lot of time on farms with him and at field days, which I absolutely loved.
My husband Adam and I are raising three boys. When I first met my husband, he was working for NSW Farmers.
So, I had quite an insight into Agri-politics.
I have lot of respect for the advocacy you have for your communities.
I won’t pretend I’m from the land, the closest I came to it was a property Adam and I had at Rylstone.
But I’ll be quite straight with you the only thing we grew there were kangaroos and woody weed.
So I’ll rely on the experts in my team and you in the room to help shape the policies to get regional economies moving.
Backing you means listening to you.
Working in partnership with you.
To have you tell us what we need to do to reach the untapped potential of regional NSW.
The truth is NSW Farmers and regional communities in our state are not being listened to often enough.
You are not getting your fair share from the current state and federal Labor Governments.
That must change.
The recent global instability and the ongoing conflict in the middle east have shown how exposed our farmers are to supply chain disruptions.
Nine in ten meals on the kitchen tables of families in this state come from Aussie farmers.
So when fuel shortages, fertiliser shortages and the risk posed by hotter and drier conditions caused by El Nino occur, they don’t just push up food prices at the checkout, they also put your livelihoods at risk.
We recognise that.
It needs to change because biosecurity threats to your farms are growing.
From feral pigs to varroa mite and now the threat posed by bird flu.
Over Easter, I had a great trip out to Greater Western NSW past Narromine to a place we go almost every Easter, Gulargambone.
I had a great time at the Hermidale Gymkhana, which was fantastic.
It is those experiences that really have given me great insights into the problems you have particularly with feral pests, like pigs.
Seeing the way they absolutely decimate the crops.
Seeing how heartbreaking it is for the farmers when they kill the lambs.
I’ve seen what happens when you have a neighbour who doesn’t control the woody weed on their property and the pigs come in from there.
I’ve seen how much it costs you if you want to put up an electric fence and try and keep a barrier there.
I know when you are doing the maintenance on your farms at the moment, the cost of diesel is always front of mine.
Do you fix the dam now or do you wait a bit longer?
In recent months, the NSW Liberals and Nationals team have been setting out some of our policies around biosecurity, fuel resilience, and infrastructure investment.
We have announced that if we are elected, we will fund a record $300 million biosecurity and control program to protect our critical primary industries sector.
The money will be invested where it is needed most.
More boots on the ground killing feral pigs;
Better exclusion fencing;
Better use of technology, and
Rapid response measures to target outbreaks before these populations expand.
This plan is about action.
Putting the money where it works to reduce feral pests and strengthen biosecurity.
Contrast that to the current government who have only allocated $16.3 million for feral pig control and pest management in the 2026/27 Budget.
None of us have a crystal ball as to when the conflict in the middle east will end.
We must accept that ongoing instability and supply chain disruptions are part of the times we live in.
We can’t control what the US and Iran decide to do next, but we can take steps in NSW to ensure we are better prepared for future shocks.
The Coalition have already announced that if we are elected in March next year, we will implement a NSW Fuel Security and Resilience Strategy.
The Minns Labor Government was warned of our vulnerabilities to supply chain shocks when the NSW’s Chief Scientist assessed our energy preparedness.
That report was provided the government over a year ago.
It has sat there collecting dust.
They also recently made the decision to shut down the Fuel Crisis Committee they set up earlier this year, that was premature.
Our fuel strategy will have a clear focus:
Explore opportunities for domestic fuel production
Assess the need to expand fuel storage capacity
Audit supply chain vulnerabilities and map the links between
Strengthen NSW against future supply shocks.
There is a lot more for us to be doing in this space as events overseas move quickly.
We are continuing to look at options around how we can support farming communities to boost their own fuel and fertiliser storage and will have more to say on this.
Roughly 25 per cent of people live outside Greater Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
It’s only fair, in our opinion, that people outside the cities get as much as the people who live in them.
Regional NSW is being left behind.
Basic infrastructure and roads has fallen into disrepair.
Labor’s budget papers show that only 13 per cent of infrastructure spending is allocated for regional NSW.
That is not fair.
If the Liberals and Nationals are elected next year, we will guarantee, at minimum, 25 per cent of new infrastructure spending is allocated to regional NSW.
Investing in new infrastructure is not just about supporting your communities by building better hospitals, schools and roads.
It is also about strengthening the economic potential of regional NSW.
We want you to be able to unlock your businesses.
That is why we have announced the Liberals and Nationals will establish the most competitive payroll tax regime of any state in Australia.
We will:
Raise the annual payroll tax threshold from $1.2 million to $1.5 million.
Lower the payroll tax rate from 5.45% to 4.75% for businesses with a total Australian payroll below $10 million.
Introduce CPI indexation to both thresholds to eliminate bracket creep.
These reforms will save an estimated 4,000 businesses from paying payroll tax and mean an additional 25,000 businesses will have the lowest payroll tax rate of any Australian State.
This is important.
We need to drive our economy again.
If you look at GSP, which is our gross state product in our state, we’ve gone from the best performing economy in the country when the Liberals and Nationals left government a few years ago. With a GSP of 4.1 per cent, we are now at the bottom of the pack, with the GSP of 0.9 per cent.
We also know that the recent NCAT judgement on Zonadi on the land tax dominant use test poses many risks for a number of your businesses.
I don’t have an announcement to make today, but I want you to know we are actively looking at this issue.
There is a lot more work for us to do in the months ahead as we approach the 2027 election.
What is clear is that farming communities want a government that listens to them.
I can promise you that I will always be someone that listens.
When farmers from Walcha came to Sydney to meet with their Premier and their Government.
To be heard about their concerns about the 500kv transmission lines being built every 400 metres.
Taller than the Opera House right through prime agricultural land.
They were met with closed doors by the Premier and his team.
When they took their petition of 22,000 signatures into the parliament it was a disgraceful no show by members opposite.
Only one turned up.
We sat down.
We listened.
And the Liberals and Nationals have announced that if we are elected next year, we will dramatically revise the New England REZ down.
That is our commitment to you.
It was universally adopted.
The Liberals and Nationals will not proceed with those brand-new transmission lines, and we will make do with what is there.
That’s important.
See, the thing is that was our plan and at the time, it looked like a good idea.
But governing is about leading.
It is about looking at what is in front of you.
It is about learning from the mistakes in other REZs.
It is about saying, if this doesn’t work, if we don’t have the wind that we thought we were going to have, if we don’t have the investment, if companies like Squadron are pulling out, it doesn’t make sense.
We are not going to spend up to $20 billion building infrastructure that will increase your bills and do damage to some of the best land in the state.
We will be pragmatic.
We will find other ways to get energy.
That does not mean we won’t have renewables in our state.
I’m not going to pretend that – we need it and we want it in many communities.
But we will be pragmatic.
That is what good government’s do.
I also want to address another elephant in the room and that is guns.
We’re continuing to hear concerns from farmers about the unintended consequences of the Minns Labor Government’s rushed changes to gun laws back in December.
What is clear is that there are some real issues with these laws.
There remains a lot of confusion and unanswered questions about the proposed guns buyback scheme.
We have seen every other state pull out of Anthony Albanese’s proposed gun buyback and we still don’t know the full cost.
The government’s laws were introduced eight days after the Bondi attack.
Now, Bondi is my backyard.
On that day, December 14 last year, I was nearby.
I jumped in an ambulance as soon as I heard about the shooting, a local Jewish community ambulance, and I raced down to the scene.
The final gunshots were being fired as I raced in.
I saw firsthand the blood spilled on Bondi Beach.
I saw the massacre of my own community members.
I sat there and I held the hand of a lady as she passed away.
These are things that have deeply traumatized me, more so my community.
I’m not saying this as an excuse, but as an explanation.
That in the aftermath of that, after I’d spent the week attending funerals, going to memorials, dealing with the most unimaginable grief – the worst terrorism attack on Australian soil.
That a week after that, eight days, we went into New South Wales Parliament and had to make an impossible choice.
To debate legislation about gun laws to make our communities feel safe.
Let’s be clear, the Opposition was not properly consulted on that.
You were not consulted on that.
We made a decision to, as Liberals, to support the legislation in the spirit of bipartisanship.
When we did that, we said there will be unintended consequences.
We said we expect the government to work with us if there are unintended consequences.
I know there are many of you in this room that will be disappointed with me for that.
What I’m saying to you is that we are listening and we have been speaking to stakeholders.
I saw it on Bondi Beach.
There were two terrorists that caused that attack.
It was not farmers.
I know you feel like you’re being punished.
I know that those 10-gun caps in your communities feel unworkable.
So I want to say that we are working with the government, with stakeholders, to make amends.
I don’t know what that looks like yet, but we’ve been doing a lot of work.
I just want you to know that.
I’m not going to hide from that.
I’m not going to shy from it.
I’m not going to absolve myself of any responsibility.
I’m just going to tell you the facts.
I’m always going to do that.
So I want you to know if you have an interest in this, come and have a chat to me and I will be all ears.
CONCLUSION
I’m going to finish on a nice story about where we are.
It’s an important story for us Liberals and Nationals.
Why are we here in Rosehill today?
What’s the story behind it?
Governor Phillip tried to do something different here 240 years ago when the government farms weren’t working.
He tried to back an individual.
James Ruse worked the land of Experiment Farm.
There were many setbacks.
But by 1791 he demonstrated that he could sustain himself and his family.
A farmer, a man, without having to, as someone else said, use the teat of government.
In doing that, he proved that a fledgling colony could feed itself.
It was an incredible moment in our nation’s history.
It was because James Ruse was given the opportunity to succeed and Governor Phillip was prepared to trust him, that the foundations of Australian farming was born.
From the thirty acres of land at Rosehill, to a multibillion industry today, our state has incredible story to tell when it comes to farming.
NSW has always led the way and the future of farming in this state is full of opportunity.
But it requires government that is going to be honest with you.
That listens to you.
That will admit mistakes.
That will forge a way forward with you.
That is what the Liberals and Nationals will always do.
I look forward to a continued friendship.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to address you today.
