Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I second the motion. We are obviously pleased to see this development take place in Townsville, and there is a great deal of bipartisanship about that particular project. But I do have to say that, in discussion of northern development, I think we need to clearer eyed. As has often been said, there has been a great deal of perhaps intellectual adventurism that has gone on in our discussion of northern Australia which has really not brought home the bacon. There has perhaps been too much emphasis on the grand and the big project as the thing that is going to turn around the future of northern Australia, and that has resulted in nowhere near the development that perhaps could have taken place. We need to move away from some of the more grandiose projects towards some more fine grain understanding of the environment and the population with whom we are dealing and come up with a response to northern Australia that may be less conducive to the grand press release but is far more conducive to sustainable development.

There is no doubt that northern Australia is, as said recently by a couple of authors in the conversation—Andrew Campbell and Jim Turner—a very special part of the world. It has amazing heritage and values. Yes, there is enormous scope for development, but the focus on dam building and big infrastructure interventions is not really the way that is going to develop this.

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