National Agriculture and Related Industries Day: How Resources Minister Matt Canavan’s classic speech conjured Bob Brown, Gina Rineheart and Bill Shorten

Join the Canavan of courage The Ferret does not score too many invitations to fancy shindigs anymore. Back in the day maybe. But that was after I was once dubbed the drunkest bloke at the WA Media Awards. Thankfully, with the clarity of the digital audio recording I was leaked from Thursday night’s National Agriculture and Related Industries Day event, I felt as though I could have been right there in the room in my best bow tie. And what a room it was, according to my subterranean sources. Full of well-paid and can-do people who make the Ferret feel like he has squandered what little talent he was born with on a life of sloth and trivialities. Chief among them was none other than Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, who bankrolled the gig. But running a very close second was Senator Matt Canavan, the 38-year-old Queensland senator who’s the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. Now, if the art of the political speech is dead, someone forget to hand young Matt the note. The Ferret doesn’t normally dedicate an entire column to one subject. But I was so inspired by Canavan (and it is the week of Seven West Media’s Resources Technology Showcase) that here I go... He began his rousing address with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek by thanking Bob Brown, godfather of the Greens, for the Liberal National Party’s spectacular success in Queensland at the May election. Brown, you might remember, generated a lot of publicity and not much else when he captained an anti-Adani coal convoy through the Sunshine State during the campaign. Bob saved not one molecule of greenhouse gas. But he and his hippy dippy convoy did succeed in scaring the bejesus out of quiet Queenslanders sufficiently for them to swing in behind Scott Morrison as if he were Arthur Beetson (look him up)reincarnated in a suit. “I can’t take any credit for what happened up there in Queensland during the election. All accolades must go to Mr Bob Brown and the role he played,” Canavan wryly noted. He then proceeded to praise Mrs Rinehart — you’ll go far, Matt! — as being one of the few people left who ignore the doomsayers who say you can’t develop our nation any more. “We live in an era where so many people tell us we can’t do certain things, there are so many people that want to stop us from developing our nation. Building mines, building new farming operations and Mrs Rinehart is one shining example in this country that we can still get things done in Australia.” And maybe in a nod to WA’s reputation as having the worst drivers in the nation, he conjured an array of traffic metaphors to explain why Perth voters similarly gave Bill Shorten the middle digit. “The big win in Perth, the election this year, I think that will go down as a fork in the road in this country when we do take a better road and we did because we defeated those people who want to stop things in this country” he said. “The opponents explicitly stood up behind big red octagonal signs. A big red sign that said stop on it, that is one we have all heard before but it was a stop sign, that was their battle shield that is what they took into the election. They wanted to stop things happening in this country, they are the stop sign people nowadays. “Now, in my view unfortunately they lost, they lost, they lost to a side who I think is best represented by a different traffic symbol and that is a green light. “I don’t want to stop mines, people from driving, fishing or hunting or enjoying their life, I want to put a green light up for our country to build our nation, to get things done to make a better country for our children and grandchildren after us and thanks for that victory the green light has been put up in front of this nation and we have won.” Watch out ScoMo! This guy is PM material. If only one of those LNP time-servers in the House of Representatives would shove over and hand him the steering wheel. At the very least can someone make him the Nationals leader already so he can be the deputy PM.