Making a stand for country people, jobs: Why I’m challenging for Nationals leadership
The greatest disappointment of our election loss is that we let down Western Australian sheep graziers, truck drivers, fencing contractors and their families. For the first time in history an Australian government is shutting down an entire industry; the live sheep trade. Thousands will be put out of work at a time of economic crisis.
Our government has stopped a goldmine because of a story about a mythical bee. Water buybacks are killing our nation’s foodbowl. And, Labor is conducting an experiment to see if we can power major industry based on weather forecasts. The outlook is not good. So far, we have lost our urea, plastics and nickel industries.
The now Labor-Greens Senate means we may lose much more. Almost all of the jobs at risk are outside our capital cities.
The Coalition adopted an election strategy that we could save these jobs by not fighting for them. We did not visit the abandoned goldmine. WA farmers barely got a mention. And, despite proposing the construction of seven nuclear power stations, we failed to show how this could rekindle an Australian industrial renaissance.
This “hiding our light under a bushel” approach failed catastrophically. We were lectured that we should not speak up because “city” voters would be repelled if we fought for farmers, miners and factory workers. It was hard advice to take given it flew in the face of our successes over the past decade. In 2019, I heard the same arguments from a Liberal minister: “Matt, we can’t approve Adani because it will cost us seats in Melbourne.”
Back then, the National Party said no, coalmining jobs should not be sacrificed to protect our jobs. We took up the fight to Start Adani, Bob Brown turned up and the
Coalition won an unexpected election victory. The feared anti-Adani backlash in Melbourne turned out to be as mythical as stories about the blue-banded bee.
On Monday, I plan to stand for the leadership of the Nationals to bring back our fighting spirit. Only if we fight will we have a fighting chance. David Littleproud can be enormously proud of his role in defeating the voice, putting nuclear power on the agenda and having divestiture powers adopted as Coalition policy for the first time.
But this debate is not about protecting his job or mine. This is about fighting for the jobs and livelihoods of the many people we represent. Many of the people who vote for the Nationals have to shower after work, not before it.
They are being worn down. Their jobs are tiring, demanding and often not financially rewarding. While our banks grow fat on the teat of carbon credits and green subsidies, our workers pay for it every quarter in their power bill and every week in their shopping trolley.
The Nationals did well at the election but only relative to the disastrous result for the Liberals. We failed in the task to help win government. The Nationals should return to a more forthright style that helped deliver recent election victories. It was the Nationals who first stood against Kevin Rudd’s carbon tax, it was the Nationals who pulped Malcolm Turnbull’s lacklustre jobs-and-growth language (remember the “new economy”?), it was the Nationals who started Adani and it was the Nationals who first opposed the voice, to much ridicule from the Canberra press gallery.
We should never take advice from those who want us to lose.
The plan we took to the last election was rejected. We need a new plan. I have been arguing for a different approach ever since we signed up to net zero. So I believe I am in a stronger position to prosecute change. First, we should scrap the futile and unachievable goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Net zero makes everything more expensive and it is not helping the environment, given the US, China and India are no longer even paying lip service to it. The primary goal of our electricity system should be to reduce power bills, not reduce emissions. That means using all of our energy resources – coal, gas, hydro, uranium and renewables. The lot.
The rule should be that if it is OK to export, it is OK for us to use. We should not tolerate other countries (to which we export coal and gas) having cheaper power prices than us. Our aim should be energy abundance, which will lower the cost of everything.
Second, we must re-establish the Australian dream of a home with a backyard you can play cricket in. All agree the only way to make housing more affordable is to increase supply. Yet all ignore the obvious place where we can increase supply. In our regional cities, NIMBYs tend to be an endangered species.
That means creating jobs in our regions through new investments in dams, farms, roads, ports and factories. We should expand work-from-home opportunities so there are professional careers available in country towns. Most families today need two jobs to make a move so this is key to making regional development a success.
Not everyone will want to move to a country town but those who do will take the pressure off housing, hospitals and roads, and that will help those who remain in the big smoke too.
Third, we must have more babies. I love babies, it is just a shame they grow into teenagers. But our country needs more babies.
Our birthrate has collapsed to just 1.5 babies per woman and most do not understand how brutal the maths is. A rough rule of thumb is that the size of your next generation will be your current population multiplied by the birthrate divided by two – although science is moving fast on this, right now only women can have babies. Using this calculation, within three generations there will be just 11 million Australians descended from those alive today. In other words, every 100 Australians will have just 40 great-grandchildren. That’s sad because grandkids give the old people I know the most joy.
We need to provide more support to the family unit through income splitting and increased family tax benefits to give people the financial freedom to have the family they want.
Finally, we must restore national pride. Australia is fast losing its trademark as the lucky country. The mums and dads forced to work two jobs to pay their mortgage do not feel lucky. The nurses who lost their jobs due to vaccine mandates do not feel lucky. The young people who have no hope to save for a deposit do not feel lucky.
Labor applauds the increase in our GDP fuelled by uncontrolled immigration even as it lowers the living standards of those already here. We need to redefine GDP to mean a Good Deal for our People first. Only then will people feel they are lucky again to be Australian.
Our plan should be based on how we can save the country, not save the party. I am standing for my party’s leadership so I can tell my kids I did everything I could to fight for a better life for them.
Matt Canavan is an LNP senator for Queensland.
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