DAVID FARLEY MP
Member for Farrer
Maiden Speech — House of Representatives
Canberra — 11 August 2026
Mr Speaker,
I rise today deeply conscious of the honour of representing the people of Farrer in this Parliament.
And I rise with a simple belief.
We all live within and across three generations.
We inherit the Australia built by those who came before us.
We enjoy the product of their toil, courage,
enterprise and sacrifice.
We’re custodians of that inheritance for a short period of time.
We carry an obligation to leave something stronger for those who follow.
That obligation —between generations
— is at the heart of why I’m here.
Because ultimately the measure of this Parliament will not be the announcements we make, arguments we win, or the headlines we generate.
It will be this:
Did we leave Australia stronger than we found it?
A FORTUNATE LIFE – Respect to Albert Facey
Mr Speaker, I am a fortunate man.
I was born into an exceptional, loving and hardworking family raised among siblings, cousins, neighbours, sporting teams and, as every Australian childhood should probably include, Buster — our family Kelpie.
My father, Keith, was the son of a First World War AIF Light Horseman and orchardist.
Dad served Australia as a naval seaman during the Second World War before building his life in agribusiness.
My mother Patsy, born in Sydney and raised in Narrandera, one of three daughters of an agribusiness entrepreneur and service provider and an extraordinary mother, grandmother & great grandmother
Mum is here today.
98 years young, she has lived through the governments of 23 Australian prime ministers.
And today, somewhat improbably, she has one politician in the family.
Mum, thank you. You are now part of Farrer’s political history.
I grew up in Narrandera, in a community where people understood that belonging brought responsibilities as well as privileges.
I was schooled sitting in classrooms full of excitement, aspiration, seated alongside Australian indigenous and New Australians from all reaches of the globe.
Language, skin colour or lunchbox content didn’t discriminate in the classrooms, sport field and school holidays moulded us all into the proud contributing Australians we are today.
Sport was central to that education.
Football ruled winter. Cricket, tennis and water sports occupied summer.
But sport taught us something much greater than how to win.
Henry Mathieson, local butcher trained and mentored generations of young people through Australian rules football.
Tommy Lee, who arrived in Australia as a teenage refugee from Germany after WW11 championed rugby league.
Unique men – Different men – Different Origins – Different Faiths Different codes.
Same lesson.
Know your position. Do your job. Back your teammates. Accept accountability & responsibility for the result.
Accountability and responsibility.
Those two words embedded in my life.
I believe they belong at the centre of public life as well.
LESSONS FROM MY FATHER
Dad ran his business and our household with something approaching naval precision.
Preparing for school was an evening operation: boots cleaned, kit packed, everything organised before dinner.
Dinner was at seven o’clock.
Not 6.55.
Not 7.05.
Seven o’clock — with approximately 15 seconds of elasticity either side.
But Dad taught me more than discipline.
He was a people person — a friend of farmers and a provider of the emerging agricultural technologies, equipment, fertilisers and working capital transforming and assisting Australian agriculture.
Some of my greatest education came travelling with him through the Riverina, walking and inspecting crops, sitting around farmers’ kitchen tables and standing in machinery sheds, listening to discussions covering seasonal conditions, commodity price sports and politics
At 14, Dad gifted me a book- George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
It left a lasting impression that has never faded
It taught me early to question power, to question orthodoxy, and to understand that noble language does not always guarantee noble outcomes.
At 17, I left home to jackeroo at Boonoke in the NSW Riverina with F.S. Falkiner & Sons.
Before I boarded the train, Dad passed me a framed copy of Rudyard Kipling’s 1910 poem If—.
He told me:
Keep it close. There will be times in life when you will need it.
He was right.
I still have it within reach of my desk. Positioned opposite is Theordore Roosevelts Man in the Arena speech – Keith was right, there are times in life where reading either gives personal or emotional perspective to your soul
And as I boarded that Narrandera train, a young woman came running down the station platform to wish me goodbye and good luck.
That young 17-year-old woman is here today.
Janice, my partner.
Life has a remarkable way of completing circles.
AN EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE
F.S. Falkiner & Sons operated some of Australia’s greatest Merino Studs.
The jackeroos’ quarters at Boonoke, housed 12 young men from across Australia.
Jackerooing was an uncompromising apprenticeship.
Long days.
Cold winters.
Hot summers.
Sheep, cattle, horses, bushfires, lamb marking, cattle branding, football, polocrosse, B&S balls — and occasionally the Conargo pub.
There were 12 competing for opportunity and career
Nobody owed you promotion.
You earned it.
Success was achieved beyond hard work, being interested – being polite – being equitable – being presentable – being there in presence – commitment – being curious and being there for the team knowing the job at hand and accepting responsibility and accountability for the outcome of the job.
Among the owners were Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenant Ken Cowley both remained generous mentors long after I left their employment.
From there life took my young family to north-western New South Wales.
With my family of two, wife Deborah and daughter Emma, we were introduced to a challenge in northwest NSW, Collymongle Station. Daughters Kate and Sarah completed our family and were educated amid the realities of mother nature’s leverage over agricultural Australia.
They are here today, together with the next generation:
Archer, Magnus, Wilhemina, Charlie, Matilda, Jock and Primrose.
My grandchildren.
They are not incidental to what I say today.
They are the reason for it.
BUILDING SOMETHING
At Collymongle Station, at the confluence of the Barwon and Gwydir Rivers, I became part of an extraordinary period of Australian agriculture.
What began with 162 hectares of cotton in 1982 grew into an enterprise cultivating tens of thousands of hectares, operating major cotton ginning facilities, warehousing and logistics infrastructure, and marketing Australian cotton to international markets.
Colly Cotton became a recognisable force in the global quality cotton markets and an annual case study at Harvard Agribusiness School under the tutelage of Professor Ray Goldberg the father of modern agribusiness learning.
It taught me what productive capital can achieve when good people, water, soil, technology, finance and markets are brought together.
It also taught me that wealth is not created by government decree.
It is created by people willing to invest, work, innovate, employ, export and take risk.
I had the privilege of working alongside remarkable people — Derek and Sam Shaw, Brian Fallon, Jeff Dewar, Lawrie Willett, Ken Webb,- Eugene Allison Rowlands, Phil Beale and many others.
I later moved to California to lead Calcot, a large but financially challenged farmer-owned cotton cooperative operating across California, Arizona and south-west Texas.
That experience brought me into direct contact with American agricultural policy, Washington, farm programs, commodity finance, teamster union, international trade and California’s never-ending contest over water.
And it reinforced another lesson:
Government policy is never theoretical to the people who must live with its consequences.
A regulation written in an office can change a business.
A ministerial decision can change an industry.
A poor policy legislated can damage a community for a generation or eventually collapse a nation.
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WHEN GOVERNMENT GETS IT WRONG
That lesson became painfully clear when I returned to Australia to lead the Australian Agricultural Company.
AACo brought responsibility on an enormous scale — land, livestock, employees, families and communities spread across northern Australia.
At the core of agriculture is uncertainty
Drought is real.
Flood is real.
Markets rise and fall.
Mother Nature does not negotiate.
What industries should reasonably expect, however, is that government decisions affecting their survival are deliberate, evidence-based and conscious of consequences.
The suspension of the live cattle trade to Indonesia demonstrated what happens when policy is made at speed without adequately understanding the chain of consequences.
The damage did not stop at the farm gate.
It travelled through businesses, transport operators, air services, Indigenous enterprises & communities, employees, families, lenders, holiday makers, boarding schools and regional towns.
Domestic cattle markets collapsed from Roma in Queensland – Dubbo NSW – Wodonga Vic to Powranna in Tasmania, writing off 100’s of millions of dollars of the value of the Australian herd
Relationships painstakingly built with Indonesia were damaged.
And Australians learned an important lesson:
Good intentions are not enough.
Government must ask the next question.
And the question after that.
What happens tomorrow?
Who carries the cost?
What are the unintended consequences?
And what happens if we are wrong?
How do we manage failure
That is not weakness in leadership.
That is the discipline of leadership.
FARRER AND THE MURRAY–DARLING BASIN
Eventually I returned to Narrandera, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee and the gateway to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area.
I returned to find communities across the Murray–Darling Basin struggling with another enormous experiment in public policy.
Many today would say the 2007 Water Act and its birth child the MDB plan is a failing expensive ideology: a set of political, economic, or social doctrines that can’t sustain a functioning society or deliver on its core promises when put into real-world practice or the next round of severe droughts. It leads to chronic systemic crises, economic collapse, widespread human suffering, causing society to eventually reject or abandon the system.
Mr Speaker, I support healthy rivers, healthy wetlands and environmental stewardship.
Anyone who has spent a lifetime on the land understands that productive agriculture ultimately depends upon healthy natural systems.
But stewardship and productivity are not enemies.
And environmental policy cannot be considered in isolation from food production, regional communities, national resilience and human wellbeing.
Australia needs to have the courage to examine the Murray–Darling Basin Plan objectively.
Not ideologically.
Not defensively.
And not on the assumption that because governments have spent billions of dollars, every underlying model & decision must therefore have been correct.
We must ask:
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What has worked?
What has failed?
What environmental outcomes have actually been achieved?
What economic capacity has been lost?
What has happened to regional communities?
What has happened to food-processing capacity?
How much water is required to securely feed 40 million people by 2050?
And most importantly:
Is the Australian Food Chain prepared for the next great Australian drought?
Because the greatest test of Australian water policy will not occur during a wet cycle.
It will come when the dams empty, the rivers contract and thirty or forty million Australians expect affordable food on supermarket shelves.
Water policy is therefore not simply environmental policy.
Water policy is food policy. National food security.
It is regional policy.
It is economic policy.
And unquestionably, it is national sovereignty policy.
I want Australia to undertake a serious reassessment of how we manage this sovereign resource.
International agreements deserve respect, but Australian governments must never outsource their fundamental responsibility to protect Australia’s national interest.
We’ve particularly done that with our 2007 Water Act and MDB plan.
We should determine first what is necessary for Australia’s sustainable environment, national food security, communities and sovereign resilience — and ensure any international obligations serve Australians first.
Australia must remain master of its own destiny.
THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
Mr Speaker, there is another reason these matter.
Most Australians alive today have enjoyed an extraordinary period of relative security and prosperity under the often described Pax Americana, era
We built businesses within it.
We traded and travelled with confidence
We expected global supply chains would function.
We assumed shipping lanes would remain open.
We assumed energy, fertiliser, medicines, technology and manufactured goods would remain available.
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These assumptions can no longer be taken for granted.
The world has become more fragmented, more transactional, more technologically competitive and more multipolar.
Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy, critical minerals, food, shipping routes and supply chains are becoming instruments of strategic power.
Australia cannot be blind, deaf, arrogant or naïve about that change.
A sovereign nation must possess the productive capacity to withstand shocks, to survive on its own.
That means base load energy security and global competitive affordability
Food security.
Water security.
Fuel security.
Agricultural inputs security
Defence capability.
Skills.
Manufacturing.
Critical infrastructure.
And financial resilience.
Sovereignty is more than a flag flying above Parliament House.
Sovereignty is capacity.
It is the capacity to feed ourselves.
Power ourselves.
Finance ourselves.
Defend ourselves.
And make decisions for us – Australia.
DEBT AND INTERGENERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
And that brings me to national debt.
Australia’s governments collectively carry an enormous public-sector debt burden.
Debt itself is not immoral.
Used intelligently, debt can build productive assets that serve Australians for generations.
Our forebears borrowed to build infrastructure because they understood that productive assets could strengthen the nation, our forefathers repaid their borrowings from the benefits and surpluses the infrastructure produced
The issue is not simply whether government borrows.
The issue is:
What did we build with the money?
Every major debt-funded capital project should therefore face basic disciplines familiar to every competent business.
What is the objective?
What is the return?
The timetable?
The budget?
Who is accountable?
And what happens when it faults or fails?
Australia should demand far greater accountability for major public investment.
Because debt is not free money.
Interest & principal must be paid
If not, somebody inherits the liability.
There is an old Yiddish proverb:
“Interest on debt grows without rain.”
Those of us who have lived through drought understand the wisdom in that sentence.
Mr Speaker
Australia has enjoyed one of the greatest commodity booms in its history.
And let’s not forget we once rode on the sheep’s back.
Iron ore.
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Coal.
Gas.
Agriculture.
Minerals. – Critical minerals
Global demand for resources beneath our feet has generated extraordinary national wealth.
Future Australians are entitled to ask:
What did you do with it?
What productive assets did you build?
What debts did you retire?
What infrastructure did you leave?
What industries did you strengthen?
What resilience did you create?
All questions my generation must be prepared to answer.
AUSTRALIA INC.
Mr Speaker, the Australian government is not a corporation.
Commonwealth governmentis not a private or for-profit corporation. We are a sovereign independent democratic nation and a constitutional monarchy.
Citizens are not shareholders and Australia is certainly more than a balance sheet.
This government exists to serve Australians.
To create the framework enabling prosperity.
But there are disciplines from successful enterprise that government should never fear.
Competence.
Accountability.
Productivity.
Capital discipline.
Measurement.
Delivery.
And responsibility for results.
Australia possesses extraordinary and many natural advantages. Including capital and democratic institutions
And above all, we have invited talented people from every corner of the world who chose to call this nation home and become contributing Australians
Our national generosity, kindness and humanity have offered the opportunity of a new life to those who have been discriminated and persecuted against.
That same generosity and kindness must be guarded and respected as we open our welcoming doors. There are those who arrive onto our shores who want change and expect that change must be us and not them.
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We must with expediency and at minimal cost remove- those who want to bring harm and disrespect to this great nation of ours
Our problem is not a shortage of national assets.
Our challenge is having the courage and competence to use them wisely.
THE GENERATIONAL TEST
Mr Speaker, we are temporary custodians.
My generation is moving through the later chapters of its contributing life.
Behind us come millennial Generations X, Y and Z.
Then Alpha.
And then Beta.
They will inherit whatever we leave behind.
And I return to the question with which I began:
Will they inherit an Australia stronger than the Australia we inherited?
Will they be able to afford to own a home, passing it to the next generation without losing it to death taxes?
To Raise a family?
Build a business?
To Afford food and energy?
Find meaningful work?
Live securely?
Will they inherit functioning infrastructure and productive industries — or merely a massive debt, incurred while talking about building them?
These questions transcend party politics.
They belong to every member of this House.
And Australia does not need smaller ambitions.
It needs greater ones. An aspirational future vision
But ambition must be accompanied by discipline.
We need a government culture, prepared to confront difficult problems not postpone them.
A culture prepared to distinguish investment from expenditure.
Prepared to defend productive capacity.
To reward enterprise.
To demand accountability.
Prepared to say when something is not working.
courageous enough to change course.
Changing course when the evidence demands it is not political weakness.
It is leadership.
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FARRER
I come to this Parliament representing 126,000 square kilometres of extraordinary Australia.
Home to ~160,000 citizens ~ of which 140,000 are of voting age
Home to many from different lands and cultures seeking a safe life , security with the opportunity of prosperity
Farrer contains farmers and manufacturers, teachers, nurses, tradespeople, business owners, retirees, young families, established Australians and new Australians.
It contains some of Australia’s greatest agricultural regions.
Farrer grows a cornucopia of crops, every day of every year a food or fibre crop is being harvested within Farrer
It contains communities that understand drought, flood, distance and adversity.
It contains people – including myself who are tired of being told that regional decline is inevitable – It is Not – I reject that premise.
I campaigned on a simple commitment:
Return productivity and capacity to Farrer.
Those words are now my obligation.
Return productive capacity to our agricultural industries.
Strengthen our towns.
Improve health services.
Develop skills.
Attract investment.
Protect and build water security.
Build infrastructure.
And create opportunity.
Make regional Australia somewhere our children choose to stay — not somewhere they must leave to build a future.
If we can demonstrate that reform in Farrer, we can demonstrate something larger:
Regional Australia is not a problem for government to manage.
Regional Australia is an asset for the nation to unleash.
ONE AUSTRALIA
I stand here as a One Nation member.
But I represent every constituent of Farrer.
Those who voted for me and against me.
And those who would never dream of voting for me.
That is democracy.
Once elected, representation extends beyond the ballot box.
Our national ambition should be equally broad.
Australia must remain a country where the circumstances of someone’s birth doesn’t limit their future.
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Where enterprise is rewarded.
Where work has dignity and success is respected.
Where those who need assistance receive it.
Where assistance becomes a bridge to opportunity not a permanent architecture of or for dependence.
Most importantly, we should rebuild confidence in ourselves.
We are one nation of extraordinarily fortunate people occupying an extraordinarily fortunate continent.
We can manage our own destiny.
GRATITUDE
Mr Speaker: No person arrives in this chamber alone.
My life has been enriched by many extraordinary people.
Jeff Dewar taught fearlessness.
Lawrie Willett, educated purpose , visionary patience
Bruce Parncutt, intellect and equity.
Eddie Jernigan, mateship and commodity commerce.
And Nick Burton Taylor, vision and a strong moral and commercial compass.
Bruce McIver an expectational Australian and a valued mentor
Too my elder sister Susan – you have been my champion during a turbulent times – good times – your ears and time have been generous to me, and your eyes have kept watch on what I’m blind to – thank you
To Debbie, my former wife and the mother of our three daughters: thank you for the endurance, patience and commitment required through those demanding years.
To Emma, Kate and Sarah, and to your families: thank you.
To Janice: thank you for standing on that Narrandera railway platform all those years ago — and for being here today as another chapter begins.
To my mother Patsy: your presence here at 98 is a gift beyond words.
To my campaign team, volunteers and supporters across Farrer: you achieved something euphoric and historic.
To Pauline Hanson, thank you for taking the plunge into politics back in 1995. And thank you for your unwavering commitment and dedication to One Nation and all Australia.
To my other One Nation colleagues, Senator Bell, MP Joyce, Senator Roberts and Senator Whitten: thank you for your trust and for the opportunity to serve.
Above all, to the people of Farrer:
Thank you for lending me your voice.
I intend to use it.
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THE RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE US
Mr Speaker,
I didn’t come to Canberra at this stage of my life to build a political career.
I’ve already had a career.
I’m here because experience is of little value if we are unwilling to share and put it to work.
I have lived in the dust of drought.
Fought flood and experienced its devastation
Enjoyed Business success.
Learnt from Business failure.
Traded into and across international markets
Been bloodied by government Intervention
And prospered with Good policy; crippled and strangled by bad.
I’ve seen Communities prosper.
And communities bearing the consequences when decision-makers get it wrong.
Those experiences have taught me that courage in public life does not mean shouting the loudest.
Courage is accepting responsibility.
It is asking uncomfortable questions.
Challenging your own side when necessary.
Its listening when evidence contradicts your assumptions.
It’s making decisions where benefits may arrive long after the next election.
And sometimes it is standing alone.
We will disagree in this chamber.
We should.
Democracy without disagreement is despotism
But disagreement need not diminish respect.
We will argue strongly.
We will question orthodoxy.
I will defend Farrer relentlessly.
But I will work with any member of this Parliament who genuinely wants to leave Australia stronger than we found it.
Because the challenges ahead are bigger than any political party.
My grandfather’s generation served.
My father’s generation built.
My generation prospered from much of what they created.
Now we must prove worthy of the inheritance.
We cannot promise our children an easy world.
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We cannot control drought.
Control global conflict.
We cannot control every market or technological disruption.
But we can control how prepared Australia is to confront them.
We can build rather than consume.
We can produce rather than regulate.
Invest rather than spend.
We can reform what is failing rather than defend it because change is politically difficult.
We can again make intergenerational responsibility a central purpose of government.
When my grandchildren someday look back at this period of Australian history, I do not want them to ask:
Why did they know what was happening and do nothing?
I want them to say:
They saw the challenges.
They had the courage to confront them.
And they built for us.
Mr Speaker, Australia has everything required to succeed.
Our continent is rich.
Our people are capable.
Our democracy is strong.
Our opportunities remain enormous.
What we require now is confidence in ourselves, discipline in government, courage in leadership and a renewed determination to build. The government framework to allow it to happen.
The sun maybe setting on the passing era of global history
It does not have to set on Australia.
Our task is not to preserve yesterday.
Our task is to build tomorrow.
For Farrer.
For our children.
For our grandchildren.
And for generations of Australians whose names we will never know, but whose future will be shaped by the decisions we make in this chamber.
That is our watch.
That is our responsibility.
And that is why I am here.
Thank you, Mr Speaker – Thank You Farrer – Thank You Australia
