Sam Birrell
Nicholls · National Party · Australia
“They will put it maybe in New South Wales, Western Australia or Queensland, but they won't even consider Victoria. The taxes, the government interference and now this proposed work-from-home legislation just mean that Victoria is not an option.”
“The Mitchell Shire Council has identified the Kilmore-Wallan Bypass as one of the highest advocacy priorities, but the project has been languishing for years. The bypass is essential to improve safety, reduce congestion and return the historic town centre to local residents and businesses.”
“As I've often said in this place, it's a great privilege to represent the electorate of Nicholls in northern Victoria, one of the great food-producing parts of Australia. Recently, I had the great honour to go to a place called Legacy Packing in Cobram for the official relaunch of their state-of-the-art packing facility.”
“As at the last election, the AEC boundary changes meant that the town of Kilmore came into the electorate that I represent, the electorate of Nicholls, and Kilmore is one of the oldest inland towns in Australia. It's a beautiful place. It has bluestone buildings, a historic jail and a monument to Hume and Hovell.”
“A major agribusiness operator in northern Victoria who operates very successfully has told me: 'We're doing no more investment in Australia. The government's making it too hard.”
“We've also got high-tech investment in the dairy industry and the apple and pear industry and we have some new investments in the processing facility SPC, which is an iconic brand in Australia that processes peaches, pears, apples and also tomatoes.”
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“In clause 67, the director-general can issue a data-sharing declaration. This overrides normal privacy protections. Now, that may be necessary in a public health emergency, but what are the safeguards against government overreach? What are the limits on which agencies can retrieve people's data? The privacy of people's data is always important, but, I would argue, in the context of centre for diseases control it is even more important than in a number of other areas where privacy is very important. I suppose what we're thinking about when we think about a centre for disease control—this should always be the question that any side of government or any member of parliament asks when a piece of legislation is presented—is: what is the problem we are trying to solve? And I would argue that Australia is already well served.”
“I'm in continuation. As I was saying earlier in the day, the coalition is not necessarily opposed to a centre for disease control, but the implementation of such a body is a fundamental change to the operations of the department of health and the Chief Medical Officer. The responsibilities have changed. We think such a big change requires a lot more scrutiny than it has been given so far. There are changes to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Biosecurity Act 2015—changes to people's responsibility. We think that there needs to be much more oversight about how that legislation is developed. As I was saying, the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill and the Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill raise some concerns about privacy and data sharing.”
“I just ask everyone: bone up on your literacy when it comes to energy policy. I was actually doing an interview from an apple orchard and I was debating. The member for Warringah said baseload power is an 'antiquated' notion and 'a thing of the past'. And I said, 'These apples—when they get picked, how are they going to be refrigerated if baseload power is an antiquated notion and a thing of the past?' And, sadly, I don't think she's alone in her illiteracy about how the energy grid works when it comes to manufacturing. We need reliable and affordable power to keep industry and keep manufacturing in Australia.”
“They talk about Germany, which is going through a de-industrialisation because it relied too much on renewable energy. They talk about Denmark and they talk about California, which have higher energy prices—higher electricity prices. What we're worried about on this side is that, if we ignore this sort of expert advice that explains how the grid works and we continue on with renewable energy up to the point of 82 per cent in the grid, we are going to have a similar price hike and the unreliability that these other countries have experienced. And, unlike Spain, we do not have a neighbour like France with nuclear energy generation to bail us out, which is what they've done. And Denmark has done the same thing in relation to Norway, which is a neighbour that has hydroelectricity.”
“But what this report points out is that the intermittent energy is a very different type of energy in a grid to what we call the baseload generation, which can come from hydro, gas, coal or nuclear. As the penetration of intermittent solar and wind energy gets further into the grid, above 30, up around 50 or 60—and if it ends up at 82 per cent—this report shows that energy becomes much more expensive and less reliable. They're explaining this because of the way that energy works in the grid, and they're also giving some examples from around the world of people who have tried this. They talk about Spain—they talk about the Iberian blackout that was caused by having too much intermittent power in the grid, causing it to shut down.”
“Well, the answer to where we're going with this comes from a report by the Centre for Independent Studies that I suggest everyone in this parliament read called The r enewable energy honeymoon : s tarting is easy, the rest is hard . It explains the fact that a certain amount of intermittent energy or solar and wind in a grid can be very good. Thirty per cent, roughly, is what they say. Thirty per cent of renewable intermittent energy in a grid can be quite successful. The people who have what I call 'energy illiteracy' say, 'If 30 per cent is good, 60 per cent must be better, and 90 per cent must be unbelievably good.' I think they've settled on 82.”
“Economics 101 is that, when you take something away from what we call a consumptive pool, everything that's left in that consumptive pool gets much more expensive, so those businesses are going to find it harder to buy the irrigation water that they need. That's going to make their businesses less viable, and I predict it will push up food prices for Australian people. Agriculturalists in the Goulburn Valley need access to affordable and reliable irrigation water. Manufacturing needs energy, and it needs it to be affordable and reliable. As previous speakers on this side have said, there have been recent bailouts in Whyalla, Nyrstar and Glencore, because energy has not been affordable and has not been reliable. Why is that?”
“Thank you, Member for Adelaide—I'll try and flesh a bit of that out about energy prices and manufacturing in my presentation. Industry is struggling across Australia, and those of us who have industry in our electorate and go and talk to industries have been told that. Not only are they worried about what is happening now; they're worried about what's going to happen in the future. I'll briefly touch on the very important agricultural industries in my part of the world and across the Murray-Darling Basin that have some real headwinds, because one of their major inputs is irrigation water, and, in the last term of government, the then minister for environment decided that the government would buy a significant proportion of that irrigation water back.”
“So I can guarantee many people on this side who preserve the principles of freedom of information will be speaking very strongly against that proposed legislation if it indeed does come into the House. And I think the freedom-of-information changes in the legislation of this bill will make an already opaque government even less transparent. Also in relation to privacy and data sharing, the bill raises concerns about this. Under clause 67, the director-general can issue a data-sharing declaration, and we are very concerned that that would override normal privacy protections.”
“I'm not a conspiracy theorist—I think everyone's here to try and do their best—but governments tend to want to protect themselves, and, if the director-general has the power to withhold information because there is a concern about 'integrity of other government processes', alarm bells are going off for me there. I think these are words that are being hidden behind when refusing to access information. To make it worse, there are no clear appeal rights, external oversights or guarantees that the public or the parliament will ever see advice underpinning critical health conditions. We've already got some legislation coming into this place which seeks to attack the legislation and principles of freedom of information on which our democracy relies so deeply—by a government that obviously is keen to do some things without public scrutiny.”
“There's also an element of a lack of transparency and freedom of information. There are provisions contained in the bill that create concerns around transparency and freedom of information, as I said earlier. This legislation doesn't just create a new body; it makes amendments to those important pieces of legislation. The bill goes out of its way to prevent information being made to the public. The director-general will have, potentially, extraordinarily broad powers to withhold information, including advice that they consider might cause unreasonable risk or harm or affect the integrity of other government processes. I get worried about those words.”
“An issue that needs to be addressed, firstly, is the chief medical officer's role. This bill appears to downgrade the role of the Commonwealth chief medical officer, and then the functions, powers and duties of the Director of Human Biosecurity will rest with a bureaucrat—the secretary of the department. That's despite the fact that Director of Human Biosecurity is a role that requires medical expertise, and that's something that the chief medical officer possesses. So the fact that you're moving such an area where critical technical understanding is needed from someone who needs to have medical expertise, which the chief medical officer does, to a bureaucrat in the department who does not need to have that technical expertise—we think that shift risks eroding public confidence in key health decisions.”
“We need to get all sorts of experts to come in and talk to us about how this might operate in terms of crossover of various responsibilities and powers. So, until the critical questions are answered—again, I emphasise that the coalition and I are not opposed to the concept of a centre for disease control. But the way that it's being rushed through the parliament when it expands such important and critical powers—it needs to be examined more, and we need more information before we can agree to passing it as a piece of legislation. The Australian people deserve a lot of confidence in their public health institution. They need to know it's effective, transparent—a very important word in which this government does not excel, I might say—and accountable. And we don't need additional layers of secrecy or bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy.”
“I do believe that this discussion about how we prepare for disease outbreaks in the future is a very important one to have. I think this is an interesting piece of legislation to discuss. But I don't think it's the sort of thing that you rush through in a hurry without using the parliament, both the House and the other place, and all of the things associated with the parliament—the committee inquiry process—to fully examine the best way of setting such a body up. So, if this is so important, why hasn't the government been making the case for it? Public health is critical to the welfare and safety of all Australians. This is a big shift in management of disease control, and it shouldn't be rushed. It should be carefully considered. It should go out for consultation—much like the inquiries we're having at the moment.”
“It amends legislation, including the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Biosecurity Act 2015, and it makes transitional provisions to transfer significant functions and powers between the department of health, the chief medical officer and the new entity. I'll come back to that in a minute. When you establish a new body without thinking it through and it interacts with the existing arrangements that we have, you have the potential for confusion and blurred lines of authority and scope. We can agree that strengthening Australia's public health preparedness is an absolute priority. The mechanisms proposed in this bill and the considerable powers that are being transferred warrant far more examination, and so we want a full inquiry into this legislation.”
“There has been some debate over that. I understand that. When we think about a CDC, we think about a non-corporate, statutory Commonwealth entity that would exist in Australia. The proposed CDC, as Labor's legislation puts it, would be led by a director-general appointed by and reporting directly to the Minister for Health and Ageing and accountable to the federal parliament. The bill amends a whole heap of existing legislation. When you look at this legislation, it doesn't just say, 'Let's set up a disease control centre and give it some money and a few powers.' It's more wide ranging than that, hence our view that the establishment of this needs a lot more scrutiny than the government is prepared to give it.”
“When we think about centres for disease control—or when I do, anyway, and in my analysis of history going back—we look at the United States and the Center for Disease Control that they set up decades ago and the important role that the US CDC had in identifying what was then known as the AIDS epidemic and then HIV, working collaboratively and in a research oriented way to try and establish where this disease had come from and what the best approach to dealing with it was. That's just one example of where a CDC has operated. There have been other communicable diseases that have become established in various parts of the world that have found their way to the United States, and their CDC has dealt with those. The way the CDCs have operated in the United States in more recent times has perhaps been called into some question.”
“I rise to speak on the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 and the Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. Together, they would establish a new national body, the Australian Centre for Disease Control—or CDC, as it's often called—as a statutory non-corporate Commonwealth entity. I really want to emphasise that the coalition is not necessarily opposed to the concept of establishing a centre for disease control.”
“I'm the beneficiary of a degree in agricultural science from Dookie, which is the regional campus of the University of Melbourne, and also an MBA, which I got at La Trobe's regional campus in Shepparton. We need to spend more time and more money taking education into the regions so that people's postcode is not a barrier to them receiving education across Australia. That can be done with a more focused effort on balancing the needs of tertiary education in the metropolitan areas with those of the regions.”
“She teaches business management, and the students benefit not only from the stuff she's learnt from her masters of teaching but from her career before she entered the classroom. Prior to coming to this place, my job was the CEO of the Committee for Greater Shepparton, and employees would come to me saying, 'We can't find the young people with the skills and training opportunities to take our businesses forward.' In 2019 I applied for a Churchill Fellowship to look at this in Germany, UK, Finland and Sweden. I saw a vocational education system that was far more impressive than what we have here in TAFE, and it was much more linked to the business community, particularly in Germany. While I've got a few more moments, I'd like to talk about what I think needs to be a growth in regional education.”
“In relation to teacher shortages, much more needs to be done to tackle workforce shortages in primary and secondary schools, and solving regional workforce shortages can be even more challenging. It requires some bespoke methods. I want to mention a few. Nexus is a program run by La Trobe University that encourages people with undergraduate degrees and experience in different professions to then fast track a masters degree of teaching while working in a classroom environment. I recently visited Cobram Secondary College in my electorate and spent time in the classroom with the inspiring Carly Marriott, who was looking for a meaningful career change that allowed her to stay connected with her community.”
“The NAPLAN results underscore the persistent performance issues, especially in remote and regional education. Students in regional and especially very remote areas are much less likely to achieve strong or exceeding proficiency standards. Over one in three students in regional or remote areas fail to meet proficiency levels. The 2025-26 review of the Measurement Framework for Schooling in Australia represents an opportunity to develop indicators beyond NAPLAN, including student engagement and learning progression measures. An improved national data set gives us a lot of potential to address the educational challenges, including student refusal, teacher shortages and declining participation rates.”
“Is it true that, even in 2034, all public school systems, except those in the ACT, will not be receiving 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard? In relation to university sustainability, the government has invested a lot of time in talking to universities. It could be the most heavily consulted sector in Australia since the Albanese government came to power. But I ask: After four budgets, are universities stronger today than they were four years ago? Are universities better governed or more financially sustainable? Are students receiving a higher quality degree, or is university research output of a higher quality? There is also the commitment to fee-free TAFE places annually. But I also ask: do we need free TAFE or a better TAFE system?”
“The Commonwealth's contribution of 80 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard to Catholic and independent schools continues. However, despite announcements spanning many photo ops between July 2024 and March 2025, concerns remain about the school funding. The Victorian government has not yet signed the bilateral agreement, so the 'full funding' language is misleading due to the heavy back ending of funding agreements with the states and territories. An analysis released by Save Our Schools last week concludes that public schools remain below the 100 per cent of Schooling Resource Standard in each year, including 2034, except in the ACT. Minister, when will Victoria sign its bilateral agreement so that additional funding can flow to the Victorian public school students?”
“I echo the disappointment that was expressed by the member for Flinders that the minister's not here to listen to these questions and answer them. It works better that way. There are some persistent structural challenges that demand our attention in the education sphere. The first one I want to raise is the Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Act, which allowed for increased school funding under the school funding model that the coalition introduced to implement the Gonski reforms, specifically the Schooling Resource Standard. Labor's legislation last year effectively enabled the Commonwealth to increase its contribution to public schooling from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2034.”
“But, once again, we are presented with a bill that has many reasonable elements but has one aspect we are concerned about. We need further explanation, further information and a Senate inquiry to interrogate those changes and make sure we don't end up with unintended consequences that leave regional and remote Australians even worse off than they are currently in relation to a trained, efficient and available medical workforce.”
“Schedule 1, for example, is on the automation of Medicare provider numbers. In my own electorate, my office has had to assist general practitioners facing extended delays in the issuing of a Medicare provider number. Schedule 2 refers to the private health insurance rebate premiums reduction scheme, and schedule 3 is for modernising the assignment of Medicare benefits for bulk-billing and simplified billing. Every government comes in and has a look at how things have worked. I think things worked well under the previous coalition government, but there's always room for improvement. If a new government comes in and finds ways to streamline because of new technology or new ideas then that's a good thing. I'm very supportive of that.”
“The Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network, along with the bonded medical scheme and the programs that have required overseas doctors to practise in regional areas as part of their visa requirements, is an example of the government being creative and filling that need for medical professionals in regional areas. But, if you start watering down these schemes, as this bill may do—again, it's not clear—in relation to the bonded medical scheme, you are going to not only water down the scheme but water down the ability of regional communities to have access to GPs. The other schedules in this bill seek to address regulatory and administrative issues. The coalition acknowledges the intent of this bill. It contains a number of technical amendments to improve the efficiency of several important elements of our health system.”
“The Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network is an example of really creative thinking by the then coalition government, saying, 'The evidence shows us that, if you train people in regions, they're likely to practise in regions.' We're about to yield in all regional areas, not just in Shepparton but across the areas where the Murray-Darling medical schools run, the benefits of having those young people graduate and work in these regions. I think that we should look at expanding the Murray-Darling medical schools beyond the Murray-Darling to other parts of regional Australia and make sure that we contribute to that population balance by not just focusing a lot of our university courses in major metropolitan cities but moving them out to regional cities so that they grow and so that we grow Australia in an even way.”
“The reason the scheme was so attractive to them is that they were kids who, if they had to go to a university in Melbourne or Sydney to study medicine, just wouldn't have studied medicine. They studied medicine because there was an opportunity to do it in a regional setting, close to their families, in an affordable way. So we have all of these kids who are going to be doctors who wouldn't have otherwise been. They are going to study in a regional location. They are going to be there for four years. They are going to put down roots. They've met people. In some cases, they have started families. In some cases, they are close to their existing families. I think, in some cases, people have already put down a deposit on a house. They are going to stay and practise in regional areas.”
“The way the program works is that students will do a Bachelor of Biomedical Science—there are 15 places set aside at La Trobe University in this particular scheme and are 15 places from any other appropriate prerequisite undergraduate course—and then the participants will go into the four-year Doctor of Medicine, which will be exclusively at the school of rural health in Shepparton, which is over the road from the hospital. The students spend four years in a regional setting. The first graduates will come out at the end of this year, in 2025, and I'm really looking forward to the moment when they graduate. I know those students personally. They've already set themselves up in regional areas. Most of them were country kids in the first place.”
“There are alternatives are out there that I've seen work very successfully in getting medical professionals into regional areas. Initiatives of the previous coalition government are a great example of this. In my electorate of Nicholls the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network—which moves Commonwealth supported places out to regional universities and regional campuses—school of rural health at the Shepparton campus of the University of Melbourne is a great example of this.”
“Currently, breaches may mean participants are liable for financial penalties, such as repayment of the scholarship or CSP fees, and, in addition, former medical rural bonded scheme participants can receive a six-year Medicare ban. Without additional information gleaned through an inquiry—that's why we want to send it to a Senate inquiry—it's difficult to determine the impact of these changes. I'm a bit wary of any change that undermines the scheme and makes it easier for participants to on one hand receive the benefits but then not deliver the obligation under which they were given the benefits in the first place. We need doctors in the regions. You can wave your Medicare card as much as you want, even if you're the Prime Minister, but you won't be able to use it if there's not a doctor available.”
“It is not clear from this bill, the explanatory memorandum or the second reading speech what that actually means in practice and what the implications are going to be for regional and remote Australia, who need these GPs. While a waiver is referenced, there's no detail to it. I can understand that, in some cases, there may be compassionate and compelling circumstances for a waiver to be applied, but the broader interests of the community are also very important, and these schemes can mean the difference between having and not having a local GP. There is a third element here that's not addressed: the integrity of the scheme itself.”
“But priority areas continue to extend into the fringes of capital cities, and 15 metropolitan areas gained DPA status, which allows for those areas to compete for overseas trained doctors with the most remote and underserviced regions in Australia. What we can't afford is further dilution of programs designed to get doctors into communities that most need them. Schedule 4 seeks to make changes to the Bonded Medical Program so that consequences for participants who withdraw from the program or fail to complete their return of service obligation—I emphasise that word 'obligation'—balance the 'personal circumstances' of the bonded participant with the broader interests of the community.”
“The bonded medical programs have played an important part for many years in delivering Australian educated doctors to regional communities. The schemes have operated alongside similar schemes binding foreign trained doctors to work in regional areas for a set period as part of their visa decisions. Schemes designed to address GP workforce challenges in regional and remote communities are already being undermined by changes that the Albanese government has made to distribution priority areas. They've expanded the GP priority areas; 17 areas became 'more remote' under the new Modified Monash Model classifications.”
“The legacy scheme participants are able to voluntarily opt in to the Bonded Medical Program and receive a significant reduction in the return-of-service obligation and more flexible program conditions. In some cases, the length of time doctors are obligated to practise in areas of need in regional Australia is cut from six years to three years by them opting in to the current scheme. I can understand the reasons for wanting to streamline participation and administration to a single scheme, but we should also recognise the outcome is a significant cut to the amount of time those practitioners are required to practise in rural and regional areas to satisfy their return-of-service obligation. I will remind everyone in this place that, still, doctors do not grow on trees.”
“While there have been several schemes over the decades, the fundamentals are the same: medical practitioners receive support from government in return for a commitment to work in regional settings. Under the current scheme, those who sign up receive a Commonwealth supported place, a CSP, in an Australian university medical course. In return, they make a commitment to work in eligible regional, rural or remote areas for a period of three years, or 156 weeks. This is referred to in the scheme as the return-of-service obligation, and participants have 18 years in which to complete this service obligation. The statutory Bonded Medical Program commenced in 2020 and replaced two legacy schemes. The Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme was from 2001 to 2015, and the Bonded Medical Places Scheme operated from 2004 to 2019.”
“The explanatory memorandum correctly explains that the Bonded Medical Program, first introduced in 2001, aims to address the shortage of medical professionals in regional, rural and remote areas, and, as shadow assistant minister for regional health, I am acutely aware of how important that scheme is. We will be seeking further information and scrutiny on this bill through a Senate inquiry, particularly in relation to the implications of proposed changes to the Bonded Medical Program and the assignment of Medicare benefits for bulk-billing and signified billing arrangements. It is vital that these measures do not create unintended consequences or additional administrative burden for our hardworking health professionals. Right now, it is undeniable that primary health care is in crisis under this government.”
“I too rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 1) Bill 2025. This bill, like so many other pieces of legislation introduced by the Albanese government, is like a scorpion. You start at the top, and everything is fine. Then you get to the sting in the tail, not unlike the sting that many Australians are feeling when they need to pull out their credit card as well as their Medicare card. With that in mind, I'll start at the tail of this piece of legislation, and that refers to schedule 4, the Bonded Medical Program. There simply is not enough detail in the bill, the explanatory memorandum or the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care's second reading speech.”
“It's a government that's very good at campaigning, not so great at government and needs to lift its game in implementation.”
“We expect the government's decision to now support the release of 20,000 home-care packages by the end of the year. We want the full 83,000 promised by the end of this financial year and we want them as soon as possible. When I say 'we' want it, I mean the people who represent and are fighting for these older Australians, who built this country. People ask, 'What can you achieve an opposition?' This week, the coalition achieved something in opposition. It helped the government to account, it called out a minister who was delaying what should have been released to the Australian people, to older Australians, and at least some of those aged-care packages are going to go out the door immediately. There need to be more. If we hadn't piled on the pressure, this government would not have released those compare packages until 1 November.”
“Thanks to a coordinated pressure campaign from the coalition, led by shadow health and aged-care minister Senator Anne Ruston in the parliament, the government has caved to pressure and will agree to the immediate release of 20,000 home-care packages. This is despite the government voting against this requirement in the Senate earlier in the day. It's a huge win for older Australians. These older Australians, who built this country, desperately needed this assistance and weren't getting it. We were asking question after question of the minister. He wasn't answering the questions. I was even disciplined for interjecting to try to get an answer out of him. But it was worth it because we forced Labor to at least start doing the right thing, which is to release these home-care packages.”
“A week's a long time in politics, and we live in interesting times. After two days of sustained questioning in parliament, the coalition forced the Albanese Labor government to, very belatedly, release tens of thousands of home-care packages for older Australians who have been left waiting for far too long. Labor promised 83 new packages from 1 July 2025 but, instead, decided to withhold the support, despite the sector and the department being ready to deliver them. Because of Labor's delays, not a single new home-care package has been released this financial year. As a result, the priority waitlist has blown out to more than 108,000, a 400 per cent increase in just two years, while wait times have tripled. And, tragically, almost 5,000 older Australians died in the past year while waiting for their home-care packages.”
“If you damage food production, you're not governing for all Australians. The electricity grid transition is not going well. The Prime Minister promised all of these people a $275 reduction in their electricity bills based on some RepuTex modelling, which he's now running away from, at a rate that even the member for Canning couldn't catch him!”
“The people in places like my electorate, the food bowl of Australia, are incredibly proud of what they do, because they want to see people enjoying healthy, sustainably produced Australian produce. This government is making it harder for businesses to produce healthy, sustainable, Australian produced produce. Their changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the live export trade and the biosecurity tax that, thankfully, got scuppered in the Senate—all of these things, along with a raft of others including some renewable rollouts on agricultural land—make it harder for people to do that. I believe we will see an increase in food prices, because if you make it harder for Australian farmers to produce you see an increase in food prices. An increase in food prices is not good for people anywhere in Australia.”
“I say to the member for Canberra: all the best. I'm a member from regional Australia, as I think everyone knows by now. I want to talk, though, to the people of metropolitan Australia. Often, it is said, there is a divide, and there is. There are different experiences in the country compared to the city. But what happens in regional Australia and the policies that affect what people do in regional Australia affect people in metropolitan areas. If a government is not looking after the regions, then it's not governing for everyone. And it's not only affecting the regional people; it's affecting people in the cities as well. We all live in this great country together. Obviously, the thing we have in common, apart from the need to breathe and drink water, is the need to eat. Agriculture is critically important in this country.”
“It wasn't all politics; Wendy administered to the sick and dying, raised money for countless charities and enjoyed waterskiing, golf and playing bridge. One of Wendy's favourite sayings was, 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strength to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.' Wendy Watters lived a full and wonderful life, and I offer my sincere condolences to her family and many friends. Vale, Wendy.”
“I rise to pay a tribute to Wendy Watters, who passed away peacefully and surrounded by family on Sunday 17 August at Shepparton Private Hospital. Wendy was 90 years of age, having been born in Wangaratta in 1935. She grew up on a dairy farm and understood hard work from a very young age. With husband Lance, they run a thriving electrical business in Shepparton. Wendy also loved politics, and in 1966 she joined the Nationals. And she was still active right up until her passing. During the last campaign, Wendy was in hospital. She called to say that, once discharged, she didn't think she would be up to standing at prepoll, but she offered to help with anything else. She forged great, long-lasting friendships with past members at a state and federal level, including Peter Ross-Edwards, Bruce Lloyd and my predecessor, Damian Drum.”
“It's also important for our sovereign food capability. I'm very proud to have been involved in the agricultural industries. I had a go at uni when I first left school and tried an arts degree. It didn't quite work out, mainly because of my immaturity, which some people might say still exists.”