Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in response to the minister's statement and I thank the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia for providing an update of the government's plans for northern Australia. At least he bothered to actually front up, not like his predecessor who just tabled his statement in parliament, perhaps because he was too embarrassed to make a statement. I'm delighted to represent Senator Murray Watt and take note of this particular north Australia agenda. Like Senator Watt, I've travelled extensively across northern Australia, from the Torres Strait—the member for Leichhardt was there with me on one occasion—though to Cape York, Townsville and Cairns, and into the Northern Territory with Groote Eylandt, Arnhem Land, Maningrida and a whole range of areas across northern Australia with my good mate the member for Lingiari, and into the Kimberley as well in northern Western Australia.

It's an important part of Australia, and I would encourage Australians, when given the opportunity, to travel there and to witness the industry that's happening across there in tourism, in the resource sector and in the tertiary education sector as well. There is a whole range of service industries that are being provided, and I would encourage all Australians to realise the potential and to get behind our northern Australia agenda. I travelled there when I was younger. My mother lived up there in Cairns with her husband, and I travelled there many, many times before I was a member of parliament, and since.

At the outset, I want to say that Labor shares the government's commitment to north Australia. For decades, we've called for and supported its economic development, protection for its fragile environment, the provision of quality health and education services to the people, and the empowerment of the north's First Nations population, which is so critical. You cannot develop northern Australia without the participation, the knowledge and the involvement of Australia's First Peoples in the north.

We know northern Australia offers incredible opportunities in areas like tourism, agriculture, biofuels, renewable energy, mining, the resource sector and tropical medicine, for example. Thanks to Labor governments in my home state of Queensland as well as Western Australia and the Northern Territory, we've put in place enabling infrastructure like ports and airports and established supply chains. A competitive tax environment, of course, is really important, as well as a skilled workforce based on quality education and research institutions. These are very, very important. We need educational opportunities for people in the north just like there are for people who live in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Northern Australia is a place that embodies the best of this country. It's where cutting edge scientists play a vital role in the economy, as much as the farmers who cut the cane. Northern Australia is on the cusp of really exciting times with a key part to play in our engagement with our Asian neighbours, as it does with the domestic market in which it flourishes. It is recognised as a world-class producer and leading resources destination which is hungry for investment capital. It also has a long reputation as a reliable supplier of high-quality clean and green produce. While it may not always necessarily be acknowledged as the food bowl of Asia, we are fast becoming it's delicatessen and its premium butcher. Notwithstanding the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism, food has become an increasingly important component of the industry of northern Australia and a huge export earner for that part of our country—thanks, really, to the dining boom. More and more visitors are now coming to the north to sample our cuisine and cosmopolitan restaurants. It is a very multicultural community in northern Australia.

It is this tremendous diversity of opportunities which makes northern Australia a place where virtually anything is possible, but we need to provide support for the area. There are many challenges of living in the tropics, and the minister alluded to the droughts and cyclones that the people in the north face but that aren't faced, necessarily, by people who live in urban areas in the southern parts of the country.

This is of particular relevance to the growing needs of people living in the tropics, who, by 2050, will account for half the world's population. I would encourage people to go north to visit, see and realise the potential. Former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who pioneered Australia's cultural and trade relationship with China, once said that he wanted to be remembered not for what he was against but for what he was for. I'm very proud that Labor is for business, for growth, for jobs and for opportunity for all, particularly in the north. We are unashamedly bullish about the opportunities for our northern neighbours. I'm from South-East Queensland and I know how important the northern part of my home state, with the resource sector, agriculture and tourism, is to the prosperity of my home state of Queensland. And we know how important it is to have partners north of northern Australia, in the Asian region. Northern Australia—North Queensland, the Northern Territory and north-west Australia—is very connected to our Asian neighbours.

We want to see businesses take advantage of the NAIF, which the minister referred to. We want to see the government working with the private sector to deliver major projects of significance. We are willing to look at new funding models, but this needs to go beyond big-ticket items. Areas like tourism and smaller projects need to be looked at. At a micro level, small amounts of startup capital will make a big difference—the next Google or the next Skype. Innovation and collaboration are essential elements of the new economy, and we must build on these and compete today for the generations that follow. We really must. So it's vital that innovation and investment are brought together.

A few years ago, a group called StartupAus made the comparison that Australians bet more on the Melbourne Cup than our Nation's entire venture capital industry invests in startups in a year. We need to turn that around—notwithstanding that we are coming up to the Melbourne Cup very soon. We have to turn this around if we are going to be a competitive economy. This is crucial in northern Australia. To that end, we support investment in innovation, skills, business development and encouraging a startup culture, particularly in the north. We want to bring back innovative people, turning ideas into outcomes and building the jobs of tomorrow, particularly in northern Australia.

Innovation is a critical driver of economic growth, while technology is speeding up the pace of change. The telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users—but the Angry Birds app took just over a month. That's why it's pleasing to see state and territory governments, like the Palaszczuk government in Queensland, embedding coding, computer science, robotics, Asian languages and, crucially, entrepreneurial schools in school curricula. The work we are seeing in medical research in Queensland to develop a COVID vaccine is a fantastic application of this, building on previous research into vaccines for malaria and other tropical diseases.

Diversification is another key strategic buffer against the disruption in our trade relationships and the peaks and troughs of our traditional strengths, such as mining and agriculture, in northern Australia. This is why Labor has been talking about the need to diversify these relationships—for example, broadening and deepening our connections with India. We need to diversify our export base, build on existing strengths, and foster the development of completely new industries. That's why I've mentioned the startup industries—and we can look at micro industries in northern Australia. Our gas sector, including liquefied natural gas, is a good example of an industry in the north where we can promote exports from the region and our own energy self-sufficiency.

Unfortunately, though, in northern Australia, what we have seen from this government, as we have seen in so many areas, is that plans go off into the never-never; they are taking forever to get out the door. The north Australia white paper is a prime example of what this government loves most: a flashy big announcement but almost zero follow-through. In 2015 we had Our north, our future: white paper on developing Northern Australia. I remember reading it on the plane flying home from Canberra on a Thursday evening after a sitting period. It made big promises to turbocharge growth and create jobs right across the region. Five years on, that paper has been left to languish somewhere in the bottom drawer. It has been very slow progress for a plan that was supposed to mark the beginning of a new era of growth in northern Australia.

We've heard from the minister today that the Morrison government still hasn't fulfilled all the measures it set out five years ago. Time and time again, this government talks about the north's potential; but what it doesn't seem to understand is that the people in the north are looking for action to realise that potential. It's easy to lose count of how many reviews and rehashes of programs the government have announced for northern Australia in the last few years. Ask anyone living in the north. They don't want another announcement from this government; they want delivery.

The northern Australia white paper's crowning jewel, its big-ticket announcement and basically what this minister is the minister for, was the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. Many of the things the minister referenced in his speech today were really cross-portfolio areas that he has no personal responsibility for. But he does have the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, widely known by us as the 'No Actual Infrastructure Fund'. It has been a huge disappointment to Australians in the north. It has comprehensively failed to deliver what was promised. I would encourage those people who may be listening to look closely at the words of the minister, the fact that he's undertaken a review. He claims it's a prime mover, that it's driven development in the north. Well, I wouldn't like to get in a car with the minister and drive from Cairns to Townsville. We wouldn't get very far if this is what he thinks driving is all about, because I can assure you it hasn't driven much. The minister talked about getting rid of red tape and making the NAIF more flexible. He talked about the fact that he was going to change the eligibility guidelines. I say to the minister: you've been in power since 2013 and the white paper came down in 2015, so you've had five years to get this right.

The minister talked about the fact that he'd made all these investment decisions. I was just having a look at the minister's press releases. In his press releases, the minister has said some interesting things. In his press release on 30 September this year he talked about the NAIF having actually invested $2.4 billion. There you go: he created 7,200 jobs. That was 30 September. On 6 October it was only $2 billion—he'd lost $400 million—and he'd created 6,500 jobs. So he'd lost $400 million and 700 jobs in about seven days. That was the budget press release, by the way, on 6 October, so it probably would be pretty accurate. You'd forgive him for getting the one before wrong, but he's lost $400 million out of the NAIF investment decisions and he's lost 700 jobs.

Today I was reading his speech beforehand. For those who don't know, when whoever is in government—and we did this when we were in government—has to deliver a speech everyone gets a copy of it beforehand. It's the right thing to do, and I pay tribute to the minister for doing the right thing. I'd had a look at what he was going to say today and I was listening closely—and you would have heard him, Mr Deputy Speaker—to see if he actually said these figures. He's found the $400 million! It's back! The $400 million is back, and he's found 1,500 jobs—in the matter of a few days. Honestly, how can you believe the minister about how much money it is? By the way, Minister, you might want to have a look at your website and see what your actual department says about how much money you've allocated and how much you've invested.

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