The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (14:10): It seems that a protest is only considered important when it aligns with our own political views. People who spend any time around farming communities would hear plenty of individuals fantasising about the sorts of protests they could run, wishing that Australian farmers were more like their overseas counterparts—like those in France, who are more militant and confrontational—because that seems to be the only way to get people to listen. People talk about dumping manure on the steps of Parliament House, releasing feral pigs onto Macquarie Street to highlight the pest problem, blocking food deliveries to make a point about renewables, and using tractors to block the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Those measures would certainly grab attention, but that is not what farmers here generally do, because they are too busy with their jobs, feeding and clothing the country. They are not, by nature, people who want to deliberately inconvenience others. Unfortunately, in modern politics nice guys often finish last. Do not confuse the volume, visibility or absence of a protest for the seriousness of an issue or the impact it is having, particularly when it comes to stunts like blocking bridges or gluing people to roads. If we treat that behaviour as the gold standard for being heard, then we will encourage more of it, and I do not think we will like where it leads. I am done with people using the Australian flag as cover for childish, thuggish and un-Australian behaviour. I am also done with people treating the flag as a symbol for every mistake we have ever made. This is our flag. It has meant so much to generations of Australians.

Yes, mistakes were made under it—bad mistakes. But, rather than defining ourselves by those mistakes of the past, we should be mature enough to acknowledge how far this country has come. To me, the flag represents Cathy Freeman winning the 400 metres, or Justin Langer being carried off after his farewell test. It stood at half‑mast at Villers-Bretonneux, and it is worn on the shoulders of peacekeepers overseas. Last month it was the backdrop for 20 people who became Australian citizens in Lake Cargelligo. It is not a symbol to be destroyed or targeted with hate. It is not a cloak for cowardice, nor should it make people feel unwelcome in this country. Those who embarrass Australia with their extreme views, whether from the far right or the far left, should kick rocks. If people have something to say, say it respectfully, without hurting others and without tearing down a country that, despite its flaws, is still worth loving and being proud of. The flag represents our relative freedom and safety, which is envied around the world.

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (10:28): As we move further away from Christmas, people are looking for things to do on their weekends, particularly Sydney people. I encourage them to look to regional agricultural shows that are on at the moment throughout regional New South Wales. I will not single any out because each show comes with its own special charm. They are unique and all of them are worth the effort to get out there and see. If people get there early, they will see some of the horse events, particularly the kids showing their horsemanship skills around the arena. The adults will be doing showjumping. All that is definitely worth seeing.

Of course, there are also pavilions that display local produce, such as fruit and vegetables, wool and grain, and show off some of the great work that regional farmers are doing. There are other displays of things that visitors can be involved in, such as photo competitions, scone-making, jam‑making, honey, competitions to make a face out of fruit, LEGO competitions—anything you could imagine. I encourage people to go along and have a look at those things.

There are sideshow alleys at regional agricultural shows. As a kid, if I was lucky enough to win a bit of prize money from a horseriding event I was competing in, I would jump on the dodgem cars or on one of the mini roller‑coasters. Kids should get along and do that. While visiting the towns, I encourage people to stay in a pub or motel, have a counter feed, drop into a shop to buy some presents to bring home to Sydney, and make sure they bring home the great stories of visiting regional New South Wales and tell others in Sydney so they, too, can experience that wonderful part of the world.

I encourage people to get out and see our regional agricultural shows. They are part of what makes regional New South Wales the best place in which to live, work and raise a family. Finally, as commercial and as cheap as it may seem, I wish my wife happy Valentine's Day for this weekend.

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (14:30): I contribute to debate on the disallowance motion. There is probably no-one in this House that I disagree with more than the Hon. Emma Hurst, but I appreciate the way she goes about things. The motion is not a political stunt or some ploy; she believes in it and has brought it about in the right way. I commend the Minister, as I did when the regulation was created, for her contribution to the debate, outlining what the regulation is about. That was quite useful. Calling the collars used in virtual fencing "shock collars" is incredibly misleading and somewhat mischievous because they are not shock collars. They are collars that go around the cow, similar to the image of the traditional cow with a bell. The collars are similar to that, and they have noise as a motivation, and then a vibration and a pulse. They are not shock collars. Some people are trying to conjure up certain images with that terminology. It is incorrect to call them that. As my colleague the Leader of The Nationals in this place said, The Nationals oppose the disallowance motion because the benefits of virtual fencing are significant. It is about time it is allowed. It has productivity, environmental and animal welfare benefits.

I went to Tasmania to see virtual fencing work at an active dairy farm. I spoke to the farmers about the difference it has made. The time that was saved on that farm, moving cattle around from one spot to another and from water source to water source, was significant. The strategic use of virtual fencing means livestock can graze on areas that need grazing and rest other areas for the ground to recover, which provides benefits to soil productivity. From a production point of view, virtual fencing is quite significant. Almost lightheartedly, but no less significantly, the farmer told us about the money he had saved on gumboots. Virtual fencing means that dairy farmers in particular are not up at four o'clock in the morning, walking out in the cold and the rain and moving cows around. They can do that from inside the house. The cows can gently move where they need to be milked. With that comes savings. That farmer said he had not put on a rain jacket because he did not need to go out in the cold anymore. The farmer's fuel bill was cut to 10 per cent of what it was prior to implementing the technology. Driving four-wheel drives, quad bikes or side-by-sides up and down wet and muddy roads does significant damage that needs to be addressed. With the rain, those roads become worse.

The animal welfare benefits are significant. Farmers can track animals at all times. The pulse also brings health monitoring as well. Farmers can measure temperature, rumination and blood pressure. They know the health of a beast and can quickly identify issues. Before, farmers would do that using traditional means, but now they can identify health issues with those cows and address them. Virtual fencing also decreases the stress on cattle. I have seen cattle and sheep mustered in all sorts of different ways. I have seen people yahooing behind livestock, chasing them and throwing rocks at them...

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (12:11): I take note of a written answer to a supplementary question that I received yesterday from the Minister for Water. The Minister has done good work in some of her portfolios, but her answer exemplifies how things have fallen apart in her Water portfolio. I asked a simple question about why Coonamble Shire Council would not receive $20,000 or $30,000 of assistance to buy bottled water after its water infrastructure fell down. The request was for funds from an emergency financial grant program, which specifically states that it is for the provision of bottled water to "safeguard public health and wellbeing". I asked about why the request was rejected and if it would be considered, and I received a very bureaucratic answer. Yesterday I spoke about the problem with politics in this place, and the answer I received shows what is wrong with the bureaucratic approach that is taken by members in this place.

The answer was that, instead of providing $20,000, the Government would get guidance on appropriate water restriction levels and technical advice on when it is safe to lift the boil water alert. That is not much good to the kids who are at school in 39‑degree heat and cannot drink from the bubbler. That is no good to someone who wants to go to the shop for a lemonade but cannot use the ice machine. Something must be done about that. If it happened in Coogee or Canada Bay, it would not be acceptable, and it should not be acceptable in Coonamble. We asked for a small amount of $20,000 or $30,000. That might not seem like much to councils in Sydney, but it is an awful lot of money for Coonamble Shire Council, which must take that money from funds raised out of a dwindling rate base. I ask the Minister to please reconsider the matter and scrape up $20,000 to help Coonamble Shire Council and the people of Coonamble.

Members know that the Government is good at announcements. The Minister for Agriculture has announced another boost for biosecurity, this time regarding compliance officers, which is great. That is another good announcement, but let us see how that goes. Let us see how they go kicking the cowboys out of the bee industry, who are lighting up people with American foulbrood. I would like to see that happen very quickly. The Minister also talked about compliance in the context of individual electronic identification for sheep. Sheep and goat farmers do not want to hear about more compliance officers; they want help getting those tags in their sheep. I would be interested to see whether those compliance officers enforce the general biosecurity duty when it comes to cats, because they are having a biosecurity impact, as people should know. People who allow their cats to roam are in breach of that general biosecurity duty, and the enforcement agencies should enforce it.

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (12:31): I take note of the answer given by the Minister for Water regarding the water provided to Coonamble. It is 39 degrees in Coonamble today, and kids at the school do not have water in the bubblers. The hospital obviously needs clean, treated water for what they do and businesses cannot produce ice, yet this Government will not help out with $30,000 to provide water for council. The application has been made, despite what the Minister said. I have been quite complimentary of this Minister for a number of things. I know there is a lot going on regarding mental health, she is passionate about homelessness and she and I worked closely together on the loneliness inquiry. But we are not sure who is in charge when it comes to water.

The issue could have been fixed some time ago. There are obviously bigger issues going on for Coonamble concerning their water infrastructure, which is in need of help. We are talking about a cash-strapped local council here, not WaterNSW, which we deal with in Sydney. If this happened in Coogee it would have been fixed straightaway. The ongoing issue for Coonamble needs fixing. There is a way that the Minister can help out here with that $30,000 application that has been put in to secure water supplies. That application points specifically to the provision of bottled water and that needs to be provided. Water needs to be back in the bubblers in Coonamble. We need to be able to sit in the pub and have a lemonade with ice. The Minister can do something about this very quickly, and we would like to see that happen.

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (11:41): My question is directed to the Minister for Water. Residents at Coonamble are currently unable to drink tap water due to ongoing water supply issues. Despite that, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water rejected the council's application for just $30,000 to cover bottled water for the community. If not having clean tap water to wash in and to drink is not enough of an emergency to trigger support, then what is?

The Hon. ROSE JACKSON (Minister for Water, Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, Minister for Mental Health, and Minister for Youth) (11:41): I thank the Hon. Scott Barrett for the question. I am familiar with the circumstances in Coonamble. I acknowledge member for Barwon, Roy Butler, who, like the member for Orange, Philip Donato, makes sure that I am across issues as they pop up in his community. So I have been made aware of the circumstances in Coonamble. As I have outlined in the Chamber previously, the responsibility for the delivery of local water in these communities is the local water utility. Parts of New South Wales and Western New South Wales have experienced drying conditions; I am across that, and I know the Minister for Agriculture is across it too.

In places like Coonamble where a local water utility might struggle with the pressure that extreme heat is putting on water reserves, we have been engaged with those local water utilities to make sure they have the capacity to deliver water for their communities. That is exactly what we are doing. We have been providing and will continue to provide ongoing technical support to the community of Coonamble, so that it is able to get its treatment plant operating again. The reality is that we want to support them to have the long-term sustainable capacity to deliver water for their communities. The alternative to them being able to do that is for a government agency to step in to take over the responsibility in the long term. Coonamble does not want that.

The PRESIDENT: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.

The Hon. ROSE JACKSON: That community does not want to have that local responsibility taken away from it, and I am respectful of that. So to support the community in its work, we have to work with it in these circumstances so that it has the technical capacity to support the long-term sustainable delivery of water as the local water utility. [Time expired.]

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (11:43): I know the rules for question time have shifted a little, but the question was specifically about the funding that we asked for. It was about the $30,000 that the council put in for under the emergency relief for securing water supplies, which has been knocked back. That $30,000 is all the council needs at the moment to help cover the cost of bottled water. The information sheet talks about financial assistance being provided for the provision of bottled water, yet this council has been knocked back. The Minister spoke about wanting councils to have the capacity to provide water, but Coonamble does not at the moment. The infrastructure is breaking down. This issue has exacerbated the problem, in the long term and in the short term. The flow‑on effects of that are huge as well; for example, cattle sales in the area have had to be cancelled. As the area slips further into drought, people are hanging onto stock for longer, which is going to cause further ongoing problems. What we need to know is why the request for $30,000 to help this council was rejected. [Time expired.]

The Hon. ROSE JACKSON (Minister for Water, Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, Minister for Mental Health, and Minister for Youth) (11:44): I make a couple of points specifically on the issue of water carting. Firstly, my understanding is that the council actually has not submitted a formal request for funding. If the Hon. Scott Barrett has information that a formal request has been submitted and the details of that have been provided, and that the water is necessary for critical human needs, I would be happy to see that. But that is not my understanding. This is the critical point. Things like water carting are available to support critical human needs when an emergency situation arises. But that cannot be at the expense of supporting a local water utility to do its job in the long term. Because we do not want to go down a path of saying to a community like Coonamble that it does not have the long-term sustainable capacity to have a local water utility deliver its water. We want to invest in and support the technical capacity of local communities to do that. That is our focus, so that we do not need to deal with these kinds of situations. [Time expired.]

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (17:42): I take note of the report of the Animal Welfare Committee's inquiry into the management of cat populations in New South Wales, which found that nearly five million pet cats live in Australia, just under a million feral cats live in urban areas and north of five million feral cats could live in the bush. Cats are a huge problem in New South Wales, as they are throughout the whole of Australia. There are far too many cats. Ideally, there would be none—no feral cats anywhere. That is acknowledged to some degree by the first finding in the report, which states:

There is an urgent need to implement cat management strategies in New South Wales to address the overpopulation of cats in New South Wales, both in urban environments and in the wild.

That is obviously a true statement, but I did push to take that a little further and it is unfortunate that it was not. At least it acknowledges that urgent action is needed. We heard a lot about the confusion caused by terminology around the different subgroups of cats. While all cats in Australia are of the same species,felis catus, a range of terminology is used by different stakeholders. There are feral, wild, owned, semi-owned, unowned, domestic and contained cats. There are social cats, unsocial cats, farm cats, tip cats, street cats and pet cats. That causes a great deal of confusion and a lack of clarity around cat management in this State.

The Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water recognises that confusion in its 2024 Threat abatement plan for predation by feral cats and refers to just two classes of cats: feral and pets. Feral cats survive by hunting or scavenging and are not fully owned by people, and pet cats are owned by a person or people, with needs wholly supplied by their owners. Implementing and adopting those definitions would make management of cats a lot simpler and give clarity, which is much needed and much wanted by control authorities. We should adopt that approach in New South Wales, and I am disappointed that the final report did not include a recommendation to do as much despite efforts. The Animal Welfare Committee report recognises the confusion but does not recommend addressing the problem, which is a massive missed opportunity.

The committee spent far too long on trap-neuter-return programs, and that should be rejected right out of hand. The concept to trap, desex and release feral cats back into the wild is deeply flawed. It diverts money and effort from programs that actually reduce cat numbers. Released cats continue to hunt and kill native wildlife. Some advocates even suggest feeding those cats, but that ignores the core issue that they remain predators. What are they eating? Lizards and birds? Scraps out of the bins they tip over?

The report cites a case study run by Campus Cats at the University of New South Wales. They talk about reducing the cat population from around 70 to just eight. In a small area, perhaps that is not insignificant, but that is over 16 years. It took 16 years to remove 60 cats. The case study talks of a relatively modest annual expenditure, which includes veterinary costs of $4,250, cat food at a cost of $2,500 and admin costs of $800. That is just over $7,500 per year over 16 years, which is more than $120,000 for 60 cats, or more than $2,000 per cat. That is a volunteer program, so a real dollar value on the resources that have gone into the program would make the expenditure much higher. Imagine extrapolating that over all the cats we need to remove, even from just urban New South Wales.

There is a much more effective and immediate method that could have been employed at the point of first contact to remove those cats. Trap-neuter-release does not work. The committee could see that with the credible evidence that was in the Government's submission. It soaks up resources that could be far better spent making an actual difference to the problem, and those employing the technique are in breach of the Biosecurity Act at the very least. We should not be considering that concept at all. The committee spent far too long talking about it throughout the inquiry, and I have spent far too long talking about it in this contribution. Part of the problem with pet cats in New South Wales is the lack of registration. Only half of them are microchipped and a quarter are registered. For context, all sheep in New South Wales are required to have an electronic tag for tracing and biosecurity purposes—every single one. Yet only half our pet cats are chipped. That is not good enough and we should expect more from cat owners in New South Wales...

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx#/docid/HANSARD-1820781676-102786/link/2262

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (17:35): I contribute to debate on the motion and note the groans of members in the House. I was not going to contribute until I heard some of the things that have come up in debate. The question of the Minister about why we are doing this is obvious. It is the most obvious thing that has come out of this House since the Government's performative response to Bondi, which punished regional New South Wales so that it could be seen to be doing something. This is nothing more than political ping-pong to try to show the division within the Coalition and distract from the division within Labor's own party room.

Members of this place have a very important platform. We come to this place to voice the concerns and issues of the people we represent. This is not a platform for members to lecture people with sanctimonious crap about what we think and what they should think as well. I do not say the things I do because I am an idiot—as I have been called tonight—but because I have sat at kitchen tables with people in regional New South Wales who were in tears about the rollout of renewables and the impact it is having on them, their families and their farms, which they have spent generations building up. I am not making up some bullshit to talk about.

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: Where were you on coal seam gas?

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT: I was working with a drought charity, champ.

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: Where were you on coal seam gas?

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT: You've had your chance, you penguin.

The Hon. Wes Fang: Shut up, Jeremy.

The ASSISTANT PRESIDENT (The Hon. Peter Primrose): The Hon. Scott Barrett will be heard in silence.

Ms Abigail Boyd: Point of order: There have been interjections throughout this debate from a number of repeat offenders, and they have been very aggressive with their words and actions. It is not a pleasant atmosphere. I ask that they be called to order more readily.

The Hon. Mark Banasiak: To the point of order: There have been loud interjections, but there have also been snide mutterings from other members. Both types of interjections should cease.

The ASSISTANT PRESIDENT (The Hon. Peter Primrose): I call all members in the Chamber to order for the first time. The Hon. Scott Barrett will be heard in silence.

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: Point of order: Mr Assistant President, regarding your ruling, that means that the Hon. Wes Fang has been called to order for the second time.

The ASSISTANT PRESIDENT (The Hon. Peter Primrose): Yes, he has. The Hon. Scott Barrett may proceed.

The Hon. Wes Fang: To the point of order—

The ASSISTANT PRESIDENT (The Hon. Peter Primrose): I do not need to hear further on the point of order. The Hon. Wes Fang will resume his seat. The Hon. Scott Barrett may continue. He has 10 seconds remaining.

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT: My time has been wasted. This rollout is hurting regional people and their communities. For members to say that it is not, and that everybody accepts the rollout, is offensive and disrespectful to the people of regional New South Wales.

Lake Cargelligo Australia Day Ceremony

The Hon. SCOTT BARRETT (22:08): I was at Lake Cargelligo the other day. We have heard some sad stories from out there, but I was there for the Australia Day ceremony. Twenty new citizens joined our country. I welcome them to our country. I hope that we make their lives better. I have no doubt that they will make this country better.