Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

One of the most important facts to know about the geography of Australia is that the Murray-Darling system only has 22 million megalitres of water in it. Australia has a population of 20 million and we have tried to jam into the golden boomerang of the south-eastern rim of Australia four-fifths of our population and half of our agricultural production coming off the Murray-Darling.

In reflecting upon the reason why this is, one must look to the underlying cause. John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in Americathose two famous books which underpinned the thinking on the establishment of democracies throughout the world—talked about the tyranny of the majority. They said that whilst democracy is a desirable system it is not necessarily a benign system. It will simply reflect the will of the majority and it may well be that the thoughts, feelings and aspirations of the majority impose tyranny upon the minority.

I went for a tour through Victoria for a day on a speaking engagement I had long agreed to do. We went through 30 towns in Victoria and at the hotels I counted a collective total of only five cars. We may assume that the people of Victoria have suddenly become teetotallers or we may assume that these towns are bereft of people. I read in the newspapers while I was down there that Mr Kennett, now head of the health council that handles depression, announced that every four days a farmer in Victoria commits suicide. As a nation, should we not stagger with the horror of that statistic?

In one of my own industries, the sugar industry, we have a suicide every month. Our cattle numbers in this country are down 18 per cent, our sheep numbers are down nearly 50 per cent, our sugar production is down 12 per cent, our milk production is down 10 per cent and our butter and cheese production is down 19 per cent. When will this parliament realise that agriculture is vanishing from this country and manufacturing has all but gone?

The United States had very great thinkers to draw up its constitution: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison. They included in the constitution a separation of powers—which, of course, means that the majority does not take all—and similarly a primaries arrangement which ensures some sort of protection against the tyranny of the majority for those people who live outside of the big cities of the United States. Ivan Malloy, a lecturer, was speaking at a meeting I was at recently and he said that we are the only country left using this primitive system of two parties with parliamentarians voting along party lines. In the United States they have a two-party system, yes, but they do not vote along party lines.

So, whilst Australia tries to water four-fifths of its population on one-tenth of its water and grow half of its agricultural production off a measly little 22 million megalitres, north-western Australia has 90 million megalitres. It could be the great juggernaut. North-western Australia has 90 million megalitres, the gulf has 130 million megalitres and the north-east coast north of Sarina has another 80 million megalitres. So we have 300 million megalitres. We could send two million or three million megalitres down to you in the Murray-Darling and not even notice it has gone. I sadly relate to this parliament that the government of Queensland has decided that we should only access of that 300 million megalitres and the 200 million in Queensland a measly 100,000 megalitres— (Time expired)

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