Politicians are back at parliament, and it’s time they remembered who is paying the bills.
In agriculture, every bad decision hits the hip pocket fast and hard.
From the toughest firearms laws in the country to the looming threat of the renewables rollout and a feral pig crisis at “breaking point,” regional NSW is demanding solutions, not reactions from Macquarie Street.
Worse still, the coming months promise a theatrical showdown in parliament that might make for good headlines, but does nothing to solve the crises at the farm gate.
The NSW Coalition now stands at a precipice.
It must not look to its federal counterparts, who recently dissolved into chaos over hate laws and internal defections, but rather to its own reflection.
The decision to “agree to disagree” over NSW Labor’s firearms legislation was more than a procedural hiccup, it was a hairline fracture in the political shield that regional industries rely on.
But a divided Coalition risks blurring advocacy on core issues such as land access, biosecurity, water and energy infrastructure, leaving farmers exposed to policy drift or deals struck without strong regional backing.
Since the bust-up, several senior federal Nationals MPs have acknowledged that the party cannot win government without the Liberals, calling for the relationship to be stitched back together as pressure intensifies from One Nation on the right and inner-city electorates on the left.
This year, the success of our regional MPs will be measured not by their rhetoric, but by their ability to inject some paddock-level common sense into the debates on renewables, biosecurity, and the chronic decline of our rural health services.
While governments dither, farmers absorb rising fuel, fertiliser, labour, and freight costs.
These costs don’t disappear, they land squarely on family farms and at supermarket checkouts, as primary producers live by budgets and balance sheets, not press releases and photo ops.
If politicians can’t deliver value for taxpayer money, protect productivity, and stop wasting funds, they shouldn’t be surprised when voters treat them the same way farmers treat a failing crop: They cut their losses and move on.
So in the high-stakes game of Macquarie Street politics, the bush is no longer willing to bankroll a performance that yields no harvest.
