Shadow Portfolio — 25 March 2026

Mr Chester, Deputy Leader of the National Party, used two separate parliamentary interventions on 25 March to prosecute a sustained case that both the federal government and state Labor administrations are failing regional and agricultural Australia — on trade, regional grants, energy, and feral-animal control.

The more politically significant of the two interventions targeted the EU free trade agreement. Mr Chester condemned the deal as a poor outcome for Australian agriculture, characterising it as pursued for a photo opportunity with a world leader rather than in farmers' interests [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s068]. The breadth of the industry opposition he marshalled was notable: twelve peak bodies — including the National Farmers Federation, Victorian Farmers Federation, Cattle Australia, the Australia-EU Red Meat Market Access Taskforce, the Australian Dairy Industry Council, Sheep Producers Australia, CANEGROWERS, the Australian Meat Industry Council, AgForce, the Australian Lot Feeders Association, and Dairy Farmers Victoria — were cited as expressing disappointment with or opposition to the agreement [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s068].

By assembling this coalition of voices, Mr Chester framed the opposition critique not as partisan complaint but as sector-wide alarm. He extended the attack beyond trade, accusing the Prime Minister of breaking his promise to govern for all Australians and of widening the city-country divide by cutting the Building Better Regions Fund, Roads of Strategic Importance, the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, and the Stronger Communities Program [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s068].

He also turned to energy, criticising the government's energy minister for what he described as a three-stage failure on fuel supply — first denying a problem, then accusing critics of scaremongering, and finally declaring a national crisis.

The second intervention focused on feral animals and invasive species, which Mr Chester told Parliament cost Australia $1 billion per year in lost agricultural production, with both levels of government failing to act adequately [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s112]. He grounded the argument in a constituent case from Benambra — a farmer who suffered severe stock losses to wild dogs overnight — and criticised the Victorian state government for rolling back a successful aerial baiting program at exactly the moment conditions favoured its use.

Mr Chester quantified the financial stakes directly: with lamb prices reaching $300 per head and ewes at $250–$350, a single bad night for a pregnant mob could mean losses of $7,500 to $15,000, with compounding mental-health consequences for farming families [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s112]. He called for federal and state governments to coordinate on natural resource management and invasive-species funding to contain the problem before it escalates further [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s112].

Taken together, the two interventions form a coherent strategic picture. Both target government neglect of regional Australia — one through the lens of a trade deal that peak bodies say shortchanges farmers, the other through the concrete costs of a pest-management failure in regional Victoria. The EU FTA attack is the higher-profile parliamentary move, carrying direct implications for trade and foreign affairs policy; the feral-animal intervention is more constituency-level in character but reinforces the same National Party frame: that city-focused governments, state and federal, are leaving regional producers to absorb costs the policy class is not tracking.