Published by Adam Giles, Chief Executive Officer of Hancock Agriculture and S. Kidman & Co
Courtesy of Herald Sun.
05.06.2026
History shows the Australian economy was built in regional areas with cities being service and trading centres.
That remains the case today, but over time the people who feed, clothe and power our nation are treated as afterthoughts by those who have lost – or never had – connection to the bush and our regions.
Largely, policies are made by those who don’t know where things come from and how they are made.
Take our thriving agricultural sector, the absolute backbone of our economy. Instead of being rewarded, our farmers are suffocated by centralised bureaucracies with complicated governance structures that over-regulate the very industries that drive our economy.
Today I travel in Victoria’s west to Simpson, through the historic town of Colac where I see a proud, hardworking hub. It is the perfect example of a community underpinned by agriculture, dairy, manufacturing, forestry, and local grit.
But Colac isn’t unique in its frustrations. Go up to the Mallee, head across to regional New South Wales, or travel to the most remote corners of Western Australia. From the Western District to the Top End, regional and remote Australia, people in the Bush are singing from the same hymn book. Communities are tired of being treated like cash cows for capital cities while their own infrastructure crumbles.
We don’t need patchwork band-aids; get governments out of the way and deliver us a generational overhaul, building infrastructure so we can create and operate better businesses and enable safe and efficient access to markets.
Our regional roads can no longer be neglected.
Every pothole on our local freight routes, every crumbling shoulder, and every neglected highway connecting towns like Colac to the rest of the country is a hazard to our families and a tax on our productivity. These essential arteries in regional Victoria need urgent rebuilding to create fairness for those in the bush.
As a Victorian, when talking about fairness one of the first things that comes to mind is the Victorian Government’s skyrocketing Fire Services Property Levy. The levy is a tax on Victorians, particularly the volunteer firefighters in their Country Fire Authority branches, often farmers, who are being taxed more to fund bloated bureaucracies.
These same volunteers are forced to fight fires with one hand tied behind their backs, using outdated and ill-suited equipment. The CFA budget needs to go on new firefighting trucks and equipment, and the volunteers should not be paying more to fight their own fires.
In sponsoring the 2026 News Corp Bush Summit, we must see these important issues come to light. From Colac to Cairns, to Cootamundra and across to Collie, people are upset.
They are sick and tired of governments not listening, while putting more rules, regulation and taxes on people who create the nation’s wealth.
Cut the government tape, fix our roads, back our volunteers, and give communities like Colac – and every regional town – the powerhouse future they have earned!
Bush Summit: Have Your Say is supported by S.Kidman & Co.
