I am grateful to the many farmers and community members who came to see me at the Mallee Machinery Field Days at Speed on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Farmers are rightfully angry about mining and energy projects, and other threats to their ability to feed and clothe the nation and the world. Social licence is paramount when a new project potentially impacts or will take over parts of productive land. Whether it is the massive 400 kilometre VNI-West transmission line, industrial scale wind turbines and solar panel installations or mineral sands mining, genuine social licence must be secured. In other words, community support for the project must be fair, real and evident. Some eye-watering amounts of money are being offered to landholders just for access to land, or in annual payments to garner construction rights and silence landholders.  I am hearing repeatedly of neighbours being pitted against neighbours. The bad blood some proponents have stirred will remain, even if the project never happens.

I lay the blame for this community division at the feet of the Albanese and Allan Labor Governments. The reckless rush is driven by Labor’s ideological goal of 100 per cent reliance on wind, solar, pumped hydro and unprecedented mega-batteries far sooner than the technology, community or household budgets are ready for. Labor is shutting down 90 per cent of our baseload energy in the next 10 years while gambling that their experiment will shoulder the load. We have at least 17 years’ worth of known gas reserves to rely on. The Coalition will bring nuclear energy online well before then, to provide zero emissions baseload and affordable energy for all Australians, using our abundant uranium resources. The 7 proposed nuclear power plants at former coal sites will connect to the existing energy grid, removing the need for huge transmission lines or a cobweb of wind and solar plants across prime agricultural land in Mallee and regional Australia.

You can find out more at www.australianeedsnuclear.org.au