Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to The Daily Telegraph editor Ben English at the Wagga Bush Summit. Photo: Supplied.
For the first time in 17 years, a sitting Prime Minister has graced Wagga with their presence.
Anthony Albanese made a fly-by visit to attend something called a Bush Summit, where he spoke only to a Sydney media editor who asked him questions about topics like Israel and Taylor Swift.
He told the audience about the wonderful things his government was doing and said his hometown Canberra was like a regional community.
That comment alone shows how out of touch he is with the bush. His visit and the so-called summit were a missed opportunity to engage with locals and learn something new. It also illustrated how tokenistic rural Australia has become to city-centric governments and mainstream media.
The event, held last Wednesday (27 August) at Charles Sturt University, was organised by Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph and given the tagline “Improving the lives of regional Australians to create a better Australia”.
A total of 27 panellists and speakers took to the stage during the day. Only four were from Wagga, two of whom were politicians. The overall line up was dominated by MPs, mining magnates, lobbyists and Sydney-based journalists.
The first keynote address was from billionaire Gina Rinehart, who beamed herself in from Perth. This was followed by a panel discussion featuring mostly out-of-town guests.
In addition to the panellists, several state MPs attended the event, but mostly quickly moved in and out of the venue without talking to local media or a group protesting the solar farm proliferation in the Riverina.
Credit must go to Premier Chris Minns and ministers Jenny Aitchison and Rose Jackson, who at least made the time to speak to local journalists on other occasions. Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce also earned points for talking to protestors.
Protestors gathered outside the summit. Photo: Helen Dalton MP.
But the summit itself appeared to be all show and did nothing to make people in Wagga feel as if they were being heard.
Most residents didn’t know it was on and were not given a fair opportunity to attend. Not that they would’ve learnt anything from a superficial discussion of topics that don’t matter from talking heads who mostly live in big cities.
It takes five hours to drive from Wagga to Sydney or you have to pay a small fortune to fly here.
If you’re going to make the effort to come along, why not take the opportunity to talk to locals and engage with them on the issues that matter to us?
Drought, water buybacks, housing affordability, underfunded medical services and the soaring cost of regional flights are all hot topics at the moment, but they barely got a mention.
The politicians who attended did make one significant achievement – uniting conservatives and lefties and Wagga.
Those protesting renewable energy and those pushing to reverse domestic violence funding cuts came together to express their disgust at how poorly they have been treated.
So to the next Prime Minister who visits Wagga, probably in the 2040s, I hope you’ve paid attention to last week’s debacle. You’re welcome to make the trek to Wagga, but while you’re here why not try doing something completely different. Talk to a local – you might learn something.
