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

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Is the minister aware that Australia north of a line drawn from Rockhampton to Karratha contains around 40 per cent of our arable land and three-quarters of our water while containing, except for a very narrow coastal strip, only one per cent of our population and agricultural production? Would the minister not agree, in the light of the overtaxing of water resources in southern Australia, that successive governments have miserably failed to achieve any balanced national development? Finally, could he assure the House that water development will take place in Northern Australia, particularly the ‘self-funding’, ‘fully researched’ projects such as Richmond Dam, and that these projects will not, for the nth time, be studied but will this time actually be built?

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