Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “Future Made In Australia” speech today tries to snatch the ‘Made in Australia’ mantra The Nationals have made famous for decades, only to divert accountability for Labor’s own distractions and failures, Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster says.

“The Albanese Labor Government continues to be distracted and has wasted almost half a billion dollars on a referendum and other pet projects while Australians are oppressed by the cost-of-living crisis and our farmers are hammered at the farm gate by the supermarket giants.” Dr Webster said. “All of a sudden as Labor repeatedly fails to ease cost-of-living at the checkout, power bills and beyond, Mr Albanese pretends he’s the champion of Australian Made. But it was The Nationals in 2019 who stood up for our dairy farmers and put a stop to dollar a litre milk. It was also The Nationals who mandated country of origin labelling at the supermarket so Australians could support local produce.

“In Mallee, The Nationals front up time and again for our food producers along the Murray Darling Basin, our cropping and wool industries as Labor bogs down farm productivity in red, green and other tape and higher taxes.”

Dr Webster said while the Prime Minister claims he is securing Australia’s economic sovereignty, Australia’s food security needs to be paramount.

“Labor makes it harder for our farmers to feed and clothe the nation, meanwhile Minister Plibersek is ripping food-producing water out of communities through buybacks. Federal and State Labor ram transmission lines through prime agricultural land. Not only are Federal Labor activating these offences, but they are slugging our farmers with a fresh food tax for risks brought to our shores by their international competitors. Labor is crippling Made in Australia, while they claim creative rights!”

Dr Webster said Labor’s pet projects like ‘sun shot’ photovoltaic panel manufacturing have already been shot down by experts when they should be leaning into Australia’s primary production strengths and value-adding regional product in the regions.

“The Nationals have the runs on the board supporting Australian producers and industry and boosting productivity. Labor have undermined productivity and want to make government bigger and picking economic winners. Time and again we see that small businesses and private enterprise drive productivity, not Labor’s tax-and-churn big government approach.

“This Prime Minister’s botched co-opting of the ‘Made in Australia’ brand is purely to avoid accountability for Labor’s broken promises, failure to help Australians with the cost-of-living, their productivity-wrecking IR changes and ideological crusades.”