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

Mr Speaker, it sounds as though I am going away from the motion but I am not. I will endeavour to provide you with a more specific response. If you ask a question this way, 'Is the minister aware of the findings of the report on water development in Northern Australia? Could the minister advise the House whether the government is going to implement the committee's recommendations?' he will answer it by saying: 'We do not necessarily carry out the recommendations of a committee and we will be considering it in due course. The member is right in asking the question. We will provide an answer for that question in due course.' Please excuse me for saying that every single person in Australia who listens to that piece of garbage says, 'What's all that about?' So let us ask the question this way: 'The minister would be aware of the findings of the committee reporting on water development in Northern Australia and their recommendations that no dams or developments should take place in the northern third of Australia. In the light of the fact that Northern Australia has 304 million megalitres of Australia's water and the other two-thirds have only 80 million megalitres and we are trying to do all the farming in the bottom two-thirds and none in the top third, wouldn't the minister believe that there should be some development where the water and the farming land are, instead of in that part of the country where they are not?'

The minister is left with no alternative but to give an intelligent response, unless he wants to look like a fool. He has to come to grips with the real issue and the real guts of the question, which is that we are sitting on an area the size of China and using none of it to feed anybody—except for a few moo cows and a few sheep walking around, and they are dwindling: 60 per cent of those sheep are gone and 30 per cent of the cattle are gone. There is a hell of a difference between asking the 30-second question and asking the 45-second question, where you get that information and where you force the minister to give an intelligent response to one of the most burning questions. I will quote the great Ted Theodore, founder of the labour movement in our country, and one of the great heroes of Malcolm Fraser and of Paul Keating. If you walk into my office there is a big picture of him on my wall as well. You could not find three more unlike people—not that I am in their class of importance—but all of us agree on that. This great man said, 'We will not be able to hold on to this country.' This question is a burning question for the people of Australia. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spelt it out three weeks ago in a very strong statement about boat people—'You have got plenty of land there and plenty of water there'. North Queensland can feed 100 million people. That is not a figure plucked out of the air. That is based upon the water and the land being used by—

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