Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate's purported amendments be disagreed to and Government amendments Nos (1) to (3) made in place thereof.

We have made these amendments after strong advocacy from the member for Durack, on our side of the fence. She has pointed out that the original definition of 'northern Australia' was first outlined by Infrastructure Australia in their Northern Australia audit. After her strong advocacy and after consideration and consultation, we have expanded the definition to include all of Exmouth and the Carnarvon region as well as the local government shires of Wiluna and Meekatharra.

The point here is that we have had a vision for northern Australia. The fledgling shadow minister for infrastructure, who would only wish to get back on the treasury bench—and I am afraid he will have to wait long after 2 July for that—did not have that vision. His party did not have the vision to develop Australia's north when they were in government for six years. Alternatively, we have recognised that that part of our country—above the Tropic of Capricorn and including some of the areas below, representing some 40 per cent of Australia's landmass but only five per cent of our population—needs critical economic infrastructure to reach its economic potential. That economic infrastructure may be transport infrastructure: roads, rail, airports and ports. It may be energy infrastructure, it may be communications infrastructure or it may be water infrastructure.

Why is water infrastructure important? Because 60 per cent of Australia's rainfall falls above the Tropic of Capricorn, but we save only two per cent of it. So we need to create the dams that can help the irrigation of the North and help the 17 million hectares of arable land we have there to become the food bowl of Asia. What is so exciting about the northern part of our country is that it is on the doorstep of these burgeoning middle classes in Asia. Indeed, it is closer from Darwin to Singapore than it is from Darwin to Melbourne. It is closer from Townsville to Port Moresby than it is from Townsville to Brisbane. We have these key centres in Australia's north, whether it is part of Western Australia, whether it is part of Queensland or whether it is in the Northern Territory, which are on the doorstep of these burgeoning middle classes in Asia.

We can capitalise on that, whether that is in tourism—over one million Chinese came to our country for the first time just last year, and there were nearly 150 direct flights each and every week between China and Australia during peak season—or whether it is in agriculture. The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which the Leader of the Opposition was so sceptical of—indeed, he was against it before he did another backflip—has turbocharged our exports to China. In fact, the export of bottled wine, for example, is up more than 65 per cent since that agreement came in. Exports of lobster and crayfish are up more than 270 per cent. These are numbers that you will not hear from the opposition because they have been denying the economic prosperity of the exporters in our agriculture sector.

We have world-class universities in our north and we are setting up a CRC to get closer cooperation between industry and academia. We have put more money into Indigenous rangers and to strengthen biosecurity. We have more money—$100 million—for beef roads and we have held important consultation forums across Australia's north. There is road infrastructure, water infrastructure and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, a $5 billion concessional loan program which will see government partner with business as well as with the state and territory governments. This is great news for Australia's north and it is the result of a northern Australia white paper which was long overdue in this country and which it took a coalition government to implement. I thank the architects of that report, the member for Leichhardt and Senator Ian Macdonald, because they have helped put in place this infrastructure we need. This infrastructure is going to be put in place by the NAIF.

This is an important time for our country. It is an important time for the development of our north. I pay tribute to Andrew Robb, who also did an excellent amount of work. I am pleased that the definition has now been expanded, because so much more of Western Australia will now benefit along with Queensland and the Northern Territory. I commend these amendments to the House.

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