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

I just want to make the point that the minister has agreed to minority representation. You and I both know the biggest minority in Australia is the people that don't live in the big cities. What I want is that minority to be represented. We'll have all these other minorities, which really are not relevant to most of those people. They're not in Bendigo and they're not in Mount Isa. I don't think any of my first Australian people will be selected for the board, and I don't think any women from my electorate will be on that board, and I hate to tell you but I don't think there will be many from Bendigo either in those categories. The one category that's not there is representation from country areas.

The last government set the NAIF up, and they did not have one single person from northern Australia on the NAIF board; it was the Northern Australia Investment Fund and they had no-one from northern Australia on it. It was jobs for the boys, and that's what my colleagues over here are trying to overcome: jobs for the boys. If ever there is a group that should be represented here, it is the member for Bendigo and the member for Kennedy's mob, where the mining and the great opportunities for processing into a refined product take place.

In Queensland when you build a new house it has to have solar panels on it. That's great, but this government and the last government have done absolutely nothing to see any of those solar panels built in Australia. We don't even provide the high-tech silicon from Australia, yet we are the cheapest silicon source in the world. It's crushed up; it's in sand. We can provide the cheapest base product in the world, but we do no upgrading whatsoever. We just let it go, same as we're doing with the bauxite at the moment.

I fear that this money will go where it shouldn't be going. Where it should be going is to the areas that the member for Bendigo and I represent.

See this speech in context