Wodonga-based Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie today welcomed the NSW government’s move to finally expand the border zone after six weeks of livelihoods being disrupted and even devastated. The NSW Premier today expanded the zone back to a 50 kilometre radius and eased restrictions to allow for necessary daily life activities. “The arbitrary two-kilometre zone…
Today I spoke in the senate on the need to recognise the intent of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, being for production of food and fibre in our farming communities – not a plan solely focused on the environment that’s led to detrimental impacts. The Nationals say: No to a further 450GL for the environment…
Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie said Labor and The Greens today again turned their back on hard working regional Victorian families in a pathetic attempt to shut down Victoria’s sustainable timber industry. The Greens unsuccessfully called on the federal Government to abandon the Victorian Regional Forest Agreement which provides for sustainable management and use of…
The Nationals Senate team welcomes today’s Senate vote acknowledging border travel restrictions imposed by state and territory governments have negatively impacted the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of regional Australians who live and work across border communities. The Senate today voted 27-22 in support of a Nationals Motion which urgently called on state…
Wodonga-based Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie is calling on National Cabinet to deliver a nationally consistent approach to border closures and quarantine processes. While state leaders are engaged in a political game of one-upmanship regional communities, hundreds of kilometres from COVID-19 hotspots, are being torn apart. Protecting the health of the Australian community is the…
Nationals Senate Leader and Senator for Victoria Bridget McKenzie says state government border closures are impacting food production and need to be addressed in days not weeks. “On behalf of regional communities, I call on Liberal and Labor Premiers to intervene. To work with both their state Agriculture Ministers and their Health Ministers to ensure…
The ACCC Water Market Inquiry Interim report makes it clear, over 542 pages, the current water market in the Murray Darling Basin is not working for irrigated agriculture or our communities. The report justifies and vindicates what irrigators have been saying for many years. Concerns highlighted in the report are not new to those of…
Better water market information and transparency will go a long way to improve the plight of water users in the Southern Murray-Darling Basin after years of uncertainty and frustration. Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie, NSW Senator Perin Davey, and Member for Mallee Anne Webster MP, said water users across the basin need better information and…
Victorian Nationals are united in their fight for fairer water policy for our farming communities, today calling for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to be split and scrapping the Basin Plan’s 450 gigalitres of “up water”. Victorian Nationals Damian Drum, the Federal Member for Nicholls, Anne Webster, the Federal Member for Mallee, Senator for Victoria Bridget…