Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Herbert for the question. He knows—as I know and as every Australian knows—that you have to live within your means. You have to do everything you can to ensure that you are not passing a debt burden on to the next generation.

I am intrigued with the questioning of the Prime Minister from the Labor Party today. They are basically saying they want to have less tax, they want to have more spending, they want to have smaller deficits and they want to have less debt. They want a magic pudding. Imagine what a magic pudding that would be—if you could tax less, spend more, have smaller deficits and have less debt. That is a magical formula, but it is not real. That is why we are dealing with the legacy from the other mob. That is why, when we make commitments, we ensure that we do it within a framework consistent with our economic plan.

The member for Herbert knows that Northern Australia has enormous potential. The member for Leichhardt, the member for Solomon, the member for Durack in particular, and even the member for Lingiari—I will give him credit here—and other members know that Northern Australia has enormous potential. It is a growth region for Australia. Darwin is closer to cities in Asia than it is to Sydney or Melbourne. Northern Australia receives 60 per cent of Australia's rainfall.

There is huge opportunity for us to develop the north. So we have announced as an interim step, as part of the Northern Australia white paper, that we are making available a $5 billion major loan facility for infrastructure in Northern Australia. There is vast opportunity in the north; it needs ports, railways, transport corridors and pipelines. These are the things that are going to build opportunity in Northern Australia, and they in turn are going to give us better access to those resources and better access to export markets. And, importantly, they are going to be key drivers of the north.

I want to take this opportunity to pay credit to Warren Entsch, the member for Leichhardt, who chaired the Northern Australia working group and travelled with a number of others around Northern Australia to identify how we could specifically deal with some of the issues and some of the challenges, but also some of the vast opportunities, associated with the development of the north. This is something Australians have talked about for a very long period of time, and it is only the Abbott government that is getting on with it.

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