Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to attend the National Farmer Rally outside Parliament House, instead, ignoring hundreds of farmers who travelled from all over Australia to plead with the Government to stop its anti-farming agenda.
Leader of The Nationals David Littleproud said “For the Prime Minister to ignore hundreds of farmers, many who have spent days on end driving to Canberra from other states, shows that Labor doesn’t care about our agriculture industry.”
“Our Prime Minister isn’t interested in helping or even listening to those who produce our nation’s food and fibre. Agriculture Minister Julie Collins didn’t attend the rally either, which is incredibly disappointing given she has only just been appointed as Agriculture Minister.”
The National Farmer Rally organisers were calling for sensible changes including scrapping the truckie tax, scrapping new taxes for biosecurity and superannuation, scrapping water buybacks in the MurrayDarling Basin and protecting the Great Artesian Basin, scrapping unnecessary red tape from emissions reporting, known as Scope 3, and scrapping reckless renewables which will rip up prime agricultural land, protecting the 88-day backpacker visa, as well as overturning the decision to ban live sheep exports by sea.
“These requests are common sense solutions and without changes, farming will become unviable. The National Farmer Rally is the biggest in a generation – it has been more than 40 years since farmers have had to march on Parliament House because a federal government has made them feel so aggrieved.”