Submissions are starting to come into the Senate inquiry on a carbon capture and storage trial in the Great Artesian Basin successfully moved by One Nation.

Pauline Hanson has always backed Australia’s world leading primary producers in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. In this land of drought and flooding rains, water security has always played a critical role.

That’s why she was appalled at the prospect of the Great Artesian Basin’s water being contaminated as the result of a proposed carbon and capture trial by multinational coal-mining giant Glencore, and successfully moved the inquiry that will continue to accept submissions until 2 May. Water in the basin supports production worth almost $13 billion per year.

Farmers are threatened by more than just this trial. Labor and the Greens have substantially increased the amount of irrigation water that can be recovered from the Murray-Darling system for the Basin Plan. Labor is moving to phase out live sheep exports, which supports thousands of regional jobs. And Labor’s appalling ‘closing the loophole’ industrial relations legislation will add to the operating and compliance costs imposed on farmers while almost destroying their ability to hire casual labour.

Labor – firmly backed by the Greens – refuses to contemplate new dams like Hells Gate near Townsville. This $5.4 billion project would have created new irrigation areas for almost a billion dollars of new produce each year, and secured more water for the growing population in Queensland’s north.

Farmers are also big users of electricity. The reckless rush to renewables and the net-zero fantasy is not only making their energy cost more, but covering large areas of primary farmland in transmission lines and wind turbines.

The ultimate result of these attacks on our farming sector will be more expensive food, and greater reliance on food imports. Despite the fact our farmers produce enough food to feed three times the Australian population, Australia itself is already a net importer of fresh produce, seafood and dairy. As more farmers lose their businesses due to Labor-Green policies, this deficit will only increase.

With the Nationals going missing for farmers, being in lock step on the net zero fantasy with the Liberals, Labor and the Greens, only One Nation is standing up for our farmers and regional communities. Check out our primary industries and regions policy here, and join us in the fight to defend Australia’s farmers from the predations of Labor and the Greens.