STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator BELL (New South Wales—Pauline Hanson's One Nation Whip) (13:16): This is not my maiden speech. Australia is in crisis. The Labor government and the Liberal-National coalition are failing our farmers and destroying our agricultural land, all to serve the destructive net zero agenda.
This isn't incompetence; it's deliberate. They are sacrificing our farmers and farmland to satisfy toxic green ideology and foreign interests. An example of this is the destruction that is taking place in Loomberah, prime farming country.
It's a shameful example. A massive foreign owned solar factory is being rammed into this community without proper consent. It will cover more than 1,400 hectares of some of the best land in NSW.
That's the equivalent of almost 60 Sydney CBDs covered in expensive, intermittent industrial solar. It is madness. Loomberah's been farmed since the 1900s.
That's five generations of hardworking Australians who have fed this country. Now the government wants to bury that history under an industrial solar plant. This isn't progress or a green transition.
It is a takeover by foreign corporations with no loyalty to this land or its people and by a government that does not care. Venn Energy, backed by overseas investors, will pocket the profits, funded by taxpayer money, while local families are left to pay the price. The people of Loomberah are surrounded by torn-up paddocks, productive land replaced with inefficient, expensive net zero waste.
Their warnings have been ignored. Their livelihoods are being destroyed. No farmers means no food, no future and no Australia.
The community didn't ask for this. They weren't properly consulted. They were dictated to.
Now their insurance costs are skyrocketing and their property values are collapsing, and, if a bushfire spreads to one of these solar farms, it is the farmers who'll be held responsible. How is any of this fair? It is not fair.
What does the local community get from this project? Nothing—not a cent of cheaper power, not a single benefit. All the electricity is pumped into the grids of the cities while the bush pays the bill.
This is the reality of the net zero crusade: foreign profits, lost farmland, broken communities, a government that doesn't give a damn, our land ruined, our soil damaged and our country roads clogged and torn apart by construction trucks—less construction, more destruction. And it's all for Labor's net zero obsession. This is not saving the planet; this is gutting the soul of our nation.
The locals have told me that they've been told their sheep will be able to graze among the panels. I love a good lamb roast like anyone else, but not one that has been slow cooked under an array of factory solar panels. Fifty to 60 football fields of NSW farmland are already lost or about to be lost, and it is still not enough.
We are being sold out by a government that pretends to care about 'made in Australia' while letting foreign companies carve up our land and sold out by a weak coalition that refuses to stand up for regional Australians. Where is the loyalty for the people who feed this nation? Where's the respect for the men and women who work the land?
This isn't an environmental policy; this is economic vandalism. It's national self-harm. Enough is enough.
It's time to put Australia first, protect our farmers and stand up for our communities. We need to listen to the people on the land, not to foreign investors and not to some unelected bureaucrat in the United Nations. Let's invest instead in reliable, cheap energy made from Australian coal-fired power.
Let's build a future that works using this energy. This land belongs to us, not to foreign corporations, not to foreign speculators and not to crazed net zero zealots. I was in Tamworth recently, where I had the honour of helping launch our One Nation branch.
Locals turned up in force—farmers, families and small-business owners, all sick of being ignored and ready to take a stand. I give full credit to the new executive there. They've done a fantastic job.
They are the ones who helped bring this to my attention. They are not just passionate; they are organised, determined and ready to fight for their community. They are showing what real leadership looks like.
This is not just happening in Tamworth or New England. One Nation branches are opening all across the country in towns, regions and suburbs that have been forgotten for too long. One Nation is part of a grassroots movement powered by everyday Australians who have had enough of being dictated to by people who don't understand our lives and don't care to listen.
This is how we send a message. This is how we take our country back—with action and organisation. If you love this country, if you care about its future, now is the time.
Join your local One Nation branch. Be part of the fight for our country's survival. When Australians stand together, we win.
If we don't stand up now, there will be nothing left to stand on. Remember: this is our land, our people and our future. It is time to fight for it.