Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

In America, they have 'redlining'. Five per cent of all banking has to go into redlined areas, which are basically the slum areas of the cities. And all of the rural areas of America are redlined, so they have to get five per cent of the banking. In Australia, it's just the opposite.

In all of inland North Queensland, the banks will lend no money for housing, full stop. You could put 90 per cent in, and they still wouldn't give you some money for a house, let alone for some business venture or agricultural venture. Is there discrimination in Australia? Too bloody right there is. If you're in a city area, you get the money from the bank. If you're in a country area, you can't. The Americans' democracy works so much better than ours, and here is a classic example of it: five per cent of all banking has to go into redlined areas.

We will be moving an amendment, and I think there will be widespread support from the crossbenchers. The great tragedy, of course, is that the Country Party was formed for exactly this purpose, and they serve that purpose never—never. It's just the opposite. So we would like the government to start thinking about redlining, because we are discriminated against.

If you want a graphic example of this, there are a million people living in North Queensland, my own land, and there are over a million people, about a million and a half, living in Brisbane. Brisbane has 29 kilometres of tunnels; we have none and we're not likely to get any. Now, why do they get 29 kilometres of tunnels and we can't get one at all? I don't mind if I get less than them, but I get none at all. We don't get anything at all.

Our situation is that 60,000 people live over there, and it takes them an hour and a half to get to the hospital, the CBD and the port. And they can't get to the port with heavy transport, so a great mineral province, with five of Australia's six greatest rivers, cannot be used for anything at all because we can't get the product out. The gulf is a flood plain; you can't possibly take product out through the Gulf of Carpentaria. If you want to get it out, you have to go through Charters Towers, which is south of Townsville, on a 2,000-kilometre round trip. Every single mining company that I've known that has opened up in that area has gone broke for that very reason. All we're asking for is $1,000 million for a tunnel, and they've spent $40,000 million on tunnels in Brisbane. I could give you a hundred other examples but I will rest there. I remind the House that in rural Australia the banks will not lend money. The great creator of the Labor Party, and arguably this nation, 'Red Ted' Theodore, one of the first things he did was introduce the state bank. When the great Labor Party of those days got into this place, the first thing they did was introduce the people's bank. We haven't got it, and—boy, oh, boy—are we getting the rough end of the pineapple because of that.

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