Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes that:

(1) there is a serious need for infrastructure and economic development in Australia’s north;

(2) the Government wants to maximise Northern Australia’s enormous untapped potential and the Prime Minister has adopted measures that will end years of Government inertia on developing this region;

(3) the terms of reference for the Northern Australia White Paper provide a foundation for a rigorous, well-defined and timely policy platform for promoting Northern Australia’s development; and

(4) through its deliberations the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia will contribute to the development of the White Paper with valuable feedback from stakeholders on the ground who have an interest in advancing the national interest.

Developing north Australia is imperative to see our region grow and thrive, given our advantageous location and unique agricultural opportunities. I was delighted that, after some discussions with Prime Minister Abbott, the terms of reference were expanded to include Alice Springs. Very importantly, the terms of reference were launched in the Northern Territory—in fact, in my electorate.

The coalition's policy to develop the north, which was released last year, names Australia's north as underutilised relative to the rest of the country, despite its natural, geographic and strategic assets. This is in stark contrast to previous governments' attitudes to northern Australia. For far too long Labor governments have hindered growth in the Northern Territory. Locally, we had 11 years of Labor, which meant 11 years of populous policy, 11 years of waste, and no real investment in infrastructure.

As a result, we now see the Country Liberals Territory government picking up the pieces of a neglected health system and an underachieving education system. These are major road blocks when it comes to growing our north. That is why the coalition has listened to my advocacy for my electorate and, indeed all Australians and the rest of the Territory, and has invested in a new hospital for Palmerston and education funding that will provide real outcomes for our children.

Along with this, the coalition recognises the territory's need for improved road infrastructure, and has placed this as a priority. This was proved in the recent budget. I am delighted with the Australian government's investment of $90 million in a regional roads productivity package, and $77 million in the Northern Territory's specific roads package. This is a significant commitment, given the financial mess that the previous Labor government has left us in. These investments come on top of the $70 million already promised by this government to duplicate Tiger Brennan Drive in my electorate.

It makes sense to continue investment in Darwin and Palmerston. Our geographic location means that we are often the first responders in Australia's response to international disasters, and we also have a massive advantage in trade with our Asian neighbours. Darwin and Palmerston really are the gateway to Asia. The booming economies of South-East Asia and southern China are within three to five hours flying time from Darwin. Plus, we are privileged to have advantages from sharing a similar time zone to many Asian countries.

Asia is already the world's largest and fastest-growing regional economy. By 2030 Asia's real GDP is expected to increase from 27 trillion to $67 trillion—exceeding the expected GDP of the Americas and Europe combined. Our exports to Asia have already benefited from this rise, with an 80 per cent increase in the decade to 2011. Given these economic advantages it is imperative that this government and future governments continue to invest in major transport infrastructure such as ports and airports.

Due to our location, the Top End is the leader in Australia's export capacity. As of 2011, more than 636 million tonnes is exported from seaports in northern Australia. This represents 74 per cent of the national total of exports via seaports. I am excited to be part of the coalition's plan to develop the north through my position on the Joint Standing Committee on North Australia. I am a proud advocate for the Territory being a leader in this process.

The Territory's interest is obvious, through the large number of quality submissions to the joint standing committee received. It was really encouraging that people were able to share their ideas and their visions to ensure that we develop north Australia. The committee has travelled extensively across northern Australia and was in Darwin recently. I was proud of the number of quality submissions the committee received. In fact, we had so much interest in the committee that we will be coming back to Darwin later this month. It was great to be able to harvest the fantastic ideas that are developing in our community.

People in northern Australia know that the Abbott government are committed to developing the north—putting into action the promises we made at the election. As I said, I am excited about the opportunities the coalition commitment to develop the North will bring my electorate and all Territorians. I will continue to lobby this government to drive growth through the fantastic opportunities that we have in the Territory.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I second the motion and reserve my right to speak at a later point.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought we were going to get something a little bit profound today and that we might get some insights into the needs of northern Australia, but what we got was a recitation of a set of statistics that anyone who has anything to do with the economic growth of Australia is well and truly familiar with. It seems that the member believes she has just discovered that we have Asia up there and there is this massive market. This has been a great process that has been happening in Australia since the Second World War—since the days of John Curtin. We have gradually come to realise that our geography is something that will ultimately determine our destiny. It is not the province of any particular government to say that they are the ones who have discovered this and developed it. If you look at the record of the Hawke-Keating years in focusing us on our northern neighbours you will see that that was a great leap forward. Every government since then has recognised that.

The idea that the previous Labor government or Labor governments before that had neglected the North is complete and palpable nonsense. I certainly, as the minister responsible for building ports and roads in Western Australia, was well and truly aware of the difficulty of extracting any money out of the Howard government to do any of the great big projects that we needed in Western Australia. As I have said before in this place, we were able to get funding from the federal Labor government for the North. The duplication of the Dampier Highway was a $110 million project, $90 million of which was the federal government's contribution. The rerouting of the Great Northern Highway into Port Hedland was a massive, much-needed project. The federal contribution to that was $191 million. $195 million was contributed by federal Labor into the expansion of the Ord River and a further $10 million was committed to advance the rollout of stage 3. Then we had Regional Development Australia, which invested $700 million to leverage programs of $1.9 billion. Many of those were in the north of the state. So the track record of Labor in having a focus on the North and in being prepared to provide that big infrastructure development is fair.

I enjoy being on the northern Australia committee. I want to compliment our chair, the member for Leichhardt, who I think is doing a good job. There is enormous potential, but we have to ensure that we follow the science. There is a lot of boosterism going on. A lot of really quite crazy projects, I have to say, are coming before us. The potential there is enormous, but we must be disciplined about this and look at the evidence that we are getting from the CSIRO as to what is sustainable.

We have seen enormous potential to develop irrigation. By not having massive dams on rivers but using a sustainable yield from the ground water we could see 120,000 hectares of new irrigated land that would enable us to not only lift agricultural and horticultural production but have our beef industry in the north of Australia be a much more vertically integrated operation, able to finish off cattle and have abattoirs there and really be the food bowl for Australia. But, as I say, there is so much boosterism that we need to be very, very careful that we work through this in a very productive way.

I also say that it is absolutely essential, if we are to get the proper development of northern Australia, that we make sure that we are bringing the Indigenous communities with us, that we are not slashing and burning their opportunities to get themselves into a sustainable position by slashing health funding and family services. (Time expired)

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a fair bit that the member for Perth just said that I agree with. To develop the north of Australia we have to look around the rest of Australia and see what has gone before. We have seen the troubles in the Murray-Darling Basin. There were troubles with salinity, overfarming and other things that went on there. In speaking to people around Australia you would think that the Murray-Darling River system was the biggest in Australia. That is far from the truth. The Murray-Darling starts in Queensland and ends up in South Australia. It only rolls into one major exit. In Queensland we have the major river systems of the Burdekin and the Fitzroy rivers. They run into the Murray-Darling, Lake Eyre, the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Pacific Ocean.

My comments in relation to this will be, by necessity, representing north Queensland in relation to the development of northern Australia. When it comes to the development of northern Australia, I agree with the member for Perth: we must get our baseline science right because we must not make these mistakes again. When you look at the development of northern Australia and across the top end of Queensland, there are 25 river systems. We know what is in about five of them. When we come to development of northern Australia, the approach of someone like Dr Damian Burrows at CSIRO, with his freshwater research to know what is actually going on in river systems, makes the most sense to me.

When you are talking about the development of Australia, everybody wants the development in their area. What we have done wrong before is taken a higgledy-piggledy approach of $5 million here and $20 million there to see what comes up. But if you do the matrix the right way and look at the whole thing and ask, 'Who has the water?' and put that down and overlap it with who has the arable soil and overlap that with who has access to ports and transport you will come up with five or six projects that we could really progress. I have always said that, when it comes to the development of northern Australia, the one thing we cannot do is put in a $25 million mung bean crop in the Gulf of Carpentaria if it is going to ruin the $1 billion prawn industry. You cannot put in a dam if it is so flat in that area that the fastest runner in the world, Usain Bolt, cannot keep up with the rate of evaporation. We have to make sure that we do this right.

At the end of the day, we have to recognise that a group of people have gone from opposition to government and we cannot play too much politics. There are eight seats north of the Tropic of Capricorn. There are 142 seats south of it. So for Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb, Julie Bishop and Warren Truss to come in here and say, 'This is the future of the country,' says a lot to me. It says a lot to the people in the north of Australia. Suddenly we have people understanding that this is basically half the country, with a tenth of the population, a minute number of seats and even fewer senators representing that part of the world. We know this is the way we have to do it.

Andrew Robb spoke in Townsville last year just before the election. He said that, at the moment, if you look at the tropical world, there is a population between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer of about 500 million people who would be considered middle class. That number is expected to grow by 2030 to 2035 to 3.6 billion people who will need quality protein, quality food, quality education and quality health. They will also need electricity.

What we have to do is recognise those opportunities and make the most of them. We are in a perfect position with the work that the government has done in securing a free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and is well on the way with China. We have to make sure we develop those things. We cannot ignore the role of Papua New Guinea in the development of Northern Australia. We must look at where our largest neighbour is. Our largest neighbour is Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world. Sometimes our relationship is prickly, but at all times we are able to do business with people.

So when it comes to the development of Northern Australia the first thing you must accept is that at last we have a government that is taking it seriously. At last we have a government that is extra doing the hard work to put down the patchwork to make sure we are looking at the macro situation and from there we can develop the projects. That is what we have to do with this process and we will deliver for the north of the country. I thank the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak to this motion, and can I thank those who have contributed already, particularly my friend from Perth, the member for Perth.

I agree that there is a serious need for infrastructure and economic development in Northern Australia; I absolutely disagree that this government 'wants to maximise Northern Australia's enormous untapped potential' and that 'the Prime Minister has adopted measures that will end years of government inertia on developing this region'. That is the biggest load of codswallop that I have heard in a long time.

In 1996, after the Keating government was defeated, the first thing almost the Howard government did was to knock off a regional roads program in the Northern Territory and get rid of the Office of Northern Australia. That is what they did. That tradition has continued, because in this last budget they have strangled regional development of Australia; they have cut funding to education for Northern Australia that will affect constituents in my electorate; they have showed a pitiful interest in funding infrastructure in the north by committing less money to the Northern Territory than they are for the ACT; they have made education and training a second tier issue, with savage cuts to schools; they do not understand there can be no development without serious commitment to education and training—and that is very clear; they have endangered the future of Charles Darwin University and made a tertiary education unaffordable thousands of people in Northern Australia. That is not a bad start for a government that is supposed to be committed to Northern Australia!

I can say this: one of the things that I am most concerned about is the way they have stood aside to passively watch the town of Nhulunbuy get gutted because of a decision made in hubris by the current Northern Territory Chief Minister not to do a deal with Rio Tinto over gas to Gove. That has meant halving the size of the town. If the government were actually committed to Northern Australia they would have been in there with a rescue package. They haven't been near the place. I have to say to those on the other side who think that somehow or other Tony Abbott is different from the rest—he ain't.

oil and gas But I do say we are doing significant things in Northern Australia and we ought to be very proud of them. In the Northern Territory, for example, we know already that there has been great work done in oil and gas, tourism, cattle and buffalo, and horticulture. We know that ConocoPhillips and INPEX's success in bringing gas onshore will lead to further development of the Top End, particularly the Darwin region, as a world-class oil and gas hub; we know that cattle and buffalo will become more attractive as the Asian middle classes grow; we know that AAco need to be congratulated for their investment in the abattoir at Livingston outside of Darwin—$80 million worth is not an enormous vote of confidence in that industry; we know about the iron ore developments in the Roper Valley; we know about developments in the Indigenous tourism training and investment; and we know about the strong gains made in horticulture. The Darwin rural area produces $180 million to $200 million worth of produce a year. They produce more mangoes with higher value than in Queensland. Melons are worth $50-$60 million. There is Asian fruit and vegetables—bok choy, kalian, choy sum, dragon fruit et cetera of around $40 million. Vietnamese-Australian farmers working in the Darwin rural area are turning over $60 million a year, the same as Ord stage 1. This is significant work that is being done that is not understood by this parliament and certainly not understood by this government.

There are huge impediments to Northern Australia growing and they are partly the responsibility of government. We have seen funding cut to CSIRO. We need to understand the science of the north. Cutting funding to Northern Australian institutions will not help. The Northern Australia and savanna CRCs, the CSIRO, Desert Knowledge, Charles Darwin University all need support.

There are huge impediments to what is happening in the Northern Territory, and some vandals are making what is happening in Northern Australia their own province. I am now talking about the Northern Territory government and its attitude to water. They are carving up the Territory's priceless water resources for their mates. A prominent CLP pastoralist, a candidate in the last election at Mataranka, has been given 5,000 megalitres of water. That is enough to run a significant number of farms. When asked what she was going to do with that water, she said she did not know. So this water was allocated not out of some plan for production but on the basis that someone wanted to get economic benefit out of trading and water. Another CLP figure, a fundraiser for them, received 21,000 megalitres in the Daley only recently and this person has never grown a thing in his life.

Water is a huge issue for Northern Australia. Understanding the science of water is absolutely fundamental. Making allocations based on your political mates is not the way to do good science or react to what is needed in Northern Australia.

I congratulate finally the chair of the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia for the magnificent work he is doing in leading that committee in his deliberations and travelling around the north.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this private member's motion. I do so as a proud North Queenslander who has often spoken in this place about the need for infrastructure in the north. I, like many other North Queenslanders, have often asked the questions: what if the true potential of the north was recognised by government? What if infrastructure was built to make the most of the assets we have in the north: our abundance of water; our welcoming climate; and enough space to swing a very, very long cat? What if policies, departments and decisions recognised that only four per cent of the population lives in the top half of the continent, and enabled and encouraged better development of Northern Australia?

Those what-ifs would require a government with vision such as the Bjelke-Petersen government, which delivered the Burdekin Dam, the last major piece of infrastructure that was built in North Queensland. The Abbott government too is a government with vision. As we promised before the election, the government set up the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia, which will inform a white paper on the north. Unlike the previous government, which grabbed the nearest thought bubble and then rammed it down people's throats, this government is actually out there listening to the people.

The committee on Northern Australia development is asking people who live, work and operate businesses across Northern Australia what unique obstacles they face and what opportunities exist. The committee has visited Perth, Cairns and Mackay and other northern parts of WA, Darwin and the Top End, and has listened to key stakeholders across north and north-west Queensland. I recognise and pay tribute to the chair of the joint parliamentary select committee who is here in the chamber, the member for Leichhardt, Mr Entsch.

Some of the input from those regional areas has been along familiar lines: doing something about increasing the zonal tax rebate and other business-led tax rebates and incentives for individuals, because you have to understand that everything is more expensive in the north. A Deloitte Access Economics report identified Queensland and regional areas as those hardest hit by things like the carbon tax, so we need to do something about that as well.

Much of the input has been about local opportunities and, in my electorate in coastal North Queensland, some very good potential projects were presented to the joint select committee which were often water related. Water is a key part of driving development. The north sees very little rain during the dry season but, during the wet, it really rains. So new dams would provide a steady reliable source of water.

The Urannah Dam project would open up an area of greenfield irrigation development only 100 kilometres from an existing agricultural area—that is, the sugar industry of the Burdekin to the north and the horticultural industry of Bowen to the south. Catching water in the wet tropic areas around the back of Eungella, Urannah would supply reliable water to the dry tropic area around Collinsville, which is now ably represented by the member for Capricornia who is going to speak later in this motion. The dam site would be in a deep valley that would produce a dam almost the same capacity as the Burdekin Dam but would only flood 20 per cent of the country that the Burdekin Dam actually covers.

Another water project in the Bowen area is an extension of the Elliot Main Channel, which is already partly constructed. It was originally designed to transport 60,000 megalitres of water each year from the Burdekin through a 93-kilometre open channel and a 63-kilometre main pipeline to Bowen and the agricultural areas in-between. Given the infrastructure is partly built already, you would only require a government with vision to reinvigorate the project to further grow agriculture in the north.

But there is more to the north than agriculture. We already have a thriving tourism market—it was once thriving; it has gone through a bit of a hiatus lately but it is getting there again. There is no shortage of drawcards throughout Northern Australia, particularly in North Queensland, such as the Whitsunday Islands and the Reef in my electorate. But there are significant cost issues. One of the obstacles raised by the committee has been the high cost of all the taxes and charges that go on airports, which in some cases actually means more than the cost of an airfare from one Asian country to another. It sets us back.

I would also like to point out one of the visionary, job-creating projects in my elect—that is, the Abbot Point coal terminal expansion, something that we need to support because it is going to be important to growth and development and new jobs in Northern Australia. A visionary government, such as the one we now have, is setting the course for the future and will not be persuaded by emotional and irrational ideological arguments against development such as the Abbot Point plan. The Abbot Point plan and the tough conditions that have been put on it by the environment minister will ensure responsible development with a net benefit to the environment.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I embrace the opportunity to speak on this debate today. Northern Australia has received a lot of attention by this parliament and that in the main has been due to the tireless efforts of the member for Leichhardt who through his lifetime in this parliament has devoted a substantial portion of it to a better understanding of the opportunities and fragile nature of Northern Australia.

In many ways, because Northern Australia has such a small population and is such a large area—that entire area of our continent north of the Tropic of Capricorn to the Arafura Sea and the Cook Strait—this part of our countryside is represented by a relatively small number of parliamentarians who in turn also represent every strain of the politics of this parliament.

So it means that Northern Australia really does not have in this place a consolidated, powerful caucus that can win votes and act in the interests of Northern Australia. To pursue the interests of Northern Australia, we need to do it through logical, carefully considered debate and with a commitment to developing our north through an understanding of the fragile nature of Northern Australia and also through a lot of common sense. What I have always enjoyed about my experience in Northern Australia is that the politics, the investment and the practicalities of Northern Australia are so solidly driven by common sense.

It has always seemed to me that Gladstone on our east coast has a lot more in common with Karratha on our west coast than Gladstone or Karratha have with the various capital cities of their states, Brisbane and Perth; that Broome and Cairns have more in common than Broome has with Perth or Cairns has with Brisbane; that Mount Isa in the great minerals province of the north-west of Queensland and Newman and Tom Price in the Pilbara have everything in common—logistics, power generation, health, Indigenous issues, cares, concerns and opportunities; that the mining provinces of Northern Australia have more in common with each other than either have with the capital cities of their states is self-evidently the truth.

Northern Australia is the home to a small but vibrant population. It is the home to some of the most innovative agricultural practices. It is the home to our northern beef industry, a billion-dollar industry. It is the home to our iron ore exporting industry, which next year will export in excess of 800 million tonnes of iron ore—contributing around a quarter of the entire state revenue of the government of Western Australia. We must consider the importance of our coal exports through Queensland, the importance of uranium mining, the importance of developing our hydrocarbon reserves off Australia and the importance of doing it all right.

We have had a substantial amount of work done by our parliament over the course of the last decade commencing with the insightful work that was started by the member for Leichardt through the Northern Land and Water Task Force, which considered the catchments through Northern Australia as distinct from the geography of Northern Australia itself. That work stands as a seminal piece of work in considering land and water use through Northern Australia. We must be cognisant of the environmental needs of water flows through Northern Australia, while, at the same time, the capacity for mosaic farming opportunities allows us to look carefully at how we can expand our horticultural and agricultural industries through Northern Australia. Other speakers have spoken of the great gains that have been made in horticulture by Vietnamese farmers in the Northern Territory generating in excess of $50-million worth of product each year through their insightful use of land and water.

We are getting there in Northern Australia but we need careful consideration—not a political debate about Northern Australia—based on the science, based on careful land use and based on the interests of the environment and of the people of Northern Australia.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to follow the member for Brand. Listening to what he said, he was very informed, very thoughtful and very insightful on the needs of Northern Australia. This is clearly going to be reflective of the report we are putting out. There are a lot of members on this committee but those of us that have been actively participating in this have been doing so very much in a tripartisan way. At this point I would like to acknowledge the deputy chair, the member for Perth, Alannah MacTiernan, who was very supportive and very capable in the work that she did. The member for Solomon, Natasha Griggs, also did a lot of good work on this. My namesake, the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, travelled around with us quite extensively. I have no doubt at all of his commitment to making these things happen. George Christensen, the member for Dawson, did great work. I see the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, is coming up shortly and she was very good too. The senators including Ian Macdonald, Rachel Siewert—our Greens senator—Senator Eggleston and Deborah O'Neill also made very positive contributions and were very productive. I have to acknowledge Senator Macdonald, who really started my journey on this back in 2002 when he hosted the Northern Australia forum at Knotts Crossing near Katherine. As the member for Brand mentioned, the start of it was really the Northern Australia Land and Water Task Force back in 2006-07 and we have continued on.

There are some great opportunities but the key to this is not partisan politics. Take the politics out of it. We have some fabulous opportunities in Northern Australia: the Urannah and Nullinga dams were mentioned and both have considerable merit as does the extension to the Elliot Main Channel. Other members talked about special economic zones. I have to say, Desert Knowledge Australia's Desert Knowledge Precinct in Alice Springs is something we need to seriously look at if we are going to be looking at development as a whole. Aside from innovations such as mobile phone technology, solar panels et cetera at the Desert Knowledge Precinct, the algae project at James Cook University in Townsville is something equally as astounding.

We found some fabulous outcomes in Indigenous employment. Sid Rusca and the Rusca Brothers in the Northern Territory have a 100 per cent Indigenous workforce at the Western Desert mining project at the Bing Bong Port at Borroloola. The company is 100 per cent owned by an Indigenous family and is something we can be really proud of.

We wrestle in this place with the challenges of engaging Indigenous people, but you get out into these places and you see people like Sid Rusca and his boys with 100 per cent employment. And we are not talking about menial stuff; we are talking about jobs where some of his employees are getting $1,000 or $1,500 a week. He is employing people straight out of communities like Ngukurr and Borroloola, and these people are aged between 17 and 60, and they are doing meaningful work. There is another one we are looking at in a couple of weeks time, Northern Projects Contracting: the Waanyi Aboriginal Corporation. Derek Aplin is the chair. They did Century Zinc; they also have a job with BHP. They are doing fabulous work.

The one thing I would say on the negative side is: let's not blame the government too much about what happened at Nhulunbuy. When we went to other places, like Paraburdoo—and we will certainly see it when we go to Weipa and other places—we saw that the company itself had a hell of a lot to do with what happened, and they should not be let off the hook. We got evidence at Nhulunbuy that after 40 years there was absolutely no legacy left when they walked away. Let's just remember that. I am sure we are going to get the same sort of thing out at Weipa.

Thank you to the members who have participated. You are doing a fabulous job, and I look forward to an outstanding report.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In politics as in sport you have to know thy enemy. I have read the coalition's 2030 vision for developing Northern Australia. As a Queenslander I was interested in what they had to say. The area north of the Tropic of Capricorn is much misunderstood by people who come from the southern states. Tourism, mining and agriculture are absolutely critical not just to my state of Queensland but to Western Australia and the Northern Territory: mining in the Pilbara in north-west Western Australia; agriculture across the region; tourism, the beauty of Uluru and the wonder of the Great Barrier Reef, and even the majesty of the Kimberley. They cannot be ignored. They are simply amazing places to visit.

The coalition says they want a Northern Australia strategic partnership—I think that is a sensible idea—engaging the premiers of Western Australia and Queensland and the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. They talk about audits of red tape and green tape. They recognise—and I think many people do not recognise this—the importance of the Bruce Highway. The Bruce Highway comes up the coast of Queensland. I know that last week the Minister for Agriculture thought it was in New South Wales or Victoria, but it actually goes up the spine of Queensland. According to the North Queensland Roads Alliance, it contributes about $11.5 billion to the Queensland economy—that is a lot of money—and over 60,000 jobs. So this is particularly important.

But the jury is still out. I welcome the joint parliamentary committee. I hope it does good work and I hope it comes up with strong recommendations so we can have a bipartisan approach across this space. But I fear that—with cuts to rail, cuts to CSIRO, cuts to regional universities like James Cook, cuts to schools and health services and $534.4 million in cuts to Indigenous affairs in my shadow portfolio—we will not see the good outcomes we would expect and we hope for in relation to that parliamentary committee. It is not just about rhetoric. It has to be matched by momentum and political muscle and there has to be money behind it.

Whilst a lot of people do not recognise the contribution Indigenous people are making, I applaud the member for Leichhardt—that might be the first time I have ever said that in this place—because he did mention the contribution of Indigenous people to Northern Australia. Indigenous Land Corporation has done some good work. Since 1995 they have acquired property in Northern Australia. There is $30 million in land management enterprise development, particularly in remote and regional areas in the north. They have acquired more than four million hectares of property. They are contributing a lot; nearly 100,000 head of cattle across Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. There are many people, as the member for Leichhardt correctly stated, who are working these stations. We have about 2.5 million hectares of Indigenous held land in production across the country. Many people would not understand the wonderful contribution—the knowledge, the history and the participation—of Indigenous people across the north of this country and what they have done.

But I fear the cuts we are seeing—for instance, the cuts to Indigenous health and the cuts to Indigenous programs. On Friday in Senate estimates, the minister could not outline what those particular cuts would mean. Indeed, in the area of the member for Leichhardt—and I praised him before—there are $3.5 million in cuts in the Torres Strait Regional Authority. We do not know how that will impact on that particular authority. They claim it will not impact on the ground but I find it hard to believe that—with the alleged efficiency dividend of 4.5 per cent, much higher than the rest of the areas of cuts across the country—that will not have an impact on front-line services. I do not really believe these efficiency dividend claims by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs. I think this will have a big impact on Northern Australia, because in parts of Northern Australia the Indigenous population is very high.

We have nearly a 100 per cent Indigenous population way up in the north of Queensland. But even in the southern parts of Queensland, in my area and in Central Queensland, there are massive numbers of Indigenous people, who we should honour and cherish. We should applaud the contribution they have made to Northern Australia. They run cattle stations in the live cattle export area. It is an important industry, and I have always been a strong supporter of the live export trade. I think it is important for North Queensland and it is important for the Northern Territory and Western Australia. I have been a strong advocate for that industry, which employs about 12,000 people and contributes $1 billion to the Australian economy. That has to be recognised, particularly in Northern Australia.

So I welcome the motion. I hope the committee does good work and I hope the member for Leichhardt actually backs it up with money into the portfolio areas I have referred to.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2050, reports indicate that Australia's population could double to reach 39 million or as high as 42 million people. At the same time, the population of Asia will boom as the number of people in the world grows to 9.6 billion human beings. By then, three out of four of the most populated countries will be Asian. Not surprisingly, these include India, China, and our neighbour Indonesia. If assessments prove correct, one of the biggest concerns will be the ability to feed these people and provide the fibres and raw materials to clothe and house them in a sustainable way.

If we act now, Australia has time to improve its position as a significant supplier of food and fibre to the world. I note a comment from Ian Burnett, from Agforce in Queensland, who suggests we cannot grow food as cheaply as other countries with which we will be fiercely competing. But what we can aim for is to supply Asia with food and fibre of a premium quality that attracts 'far better premium prices' than other parts of the world. This is why a major focus on the future potential of northern Australia is so important

I am a supplementary member of the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia, which is currently looking into the future potential of agriculture north of the Tropic of Capricorn, which runs through my electorate of Capricornia. I am convinced that we have to plan now for the boldest developments in Australia since the Snowy Mountain scheme. This may involve building more dams, opening up land previously locked away and securing water supplies to arid inland areas, some of which may even be desert.

I remind the House, that the ancient Egyptians were able to harness water into the desert and generate their own food bowl to feed their own growing population many thousands of years ago. Right now, researchers at my local university in Rockhampton, CQUniversity, are researching dryland rice cropping for northern Australia without the need for vast irrigation networks or water allocations. CQUniversity, together with Australian Agricultural Technology Limited, are conducting field trials of dryland rice geno-types. These geno-types are showing commercial potential for growing dryland rice varieties in North Queensland during the wet season. This is an area of huge importance for drought-prone Australia and for the entire Asia-Pacific region, as pressures on population and food security increase.

One project local government is pushing for in my area is a previous idea for a Fitzroy agricultural corridor along Queensland's lower Fitzroy River. Reports suggest, if viable, such a project could lead to more feedlots, piggeries and horticulture and vine and vegetable crops, such as citrus, grapes and carrots. But the future may not just be in wide-scale broadacre cropping. It may be in niche areas like gourmet foods that attract premium prices.

Recently, I took the agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, to see a hydroponic lettuce farm near Rockhampton which was started by the Wilson family. This small farm operation involves six family members and employs eight other local staff. While you might be thinking that this is not a unique ideal, it is a very unique venture for this arid, hot part of the Tropic of Capricorn. If we are talking about increased food production we have to think outside the box, like the Wilson's, and turn to different types of farming methods to make use of difficult landscapes. The Wilsons now supply Coles, Woolworths and IGA with gourmet lettuce. Developing northern Australia will take bold thinking and bold decision making, but it must be done and this government must be at the forefront of getting on with the job.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to follow, in particular, the member for Leichhardt and the member for Brand, who collectively and individually have a great wealth of knowledge on the issues facing northern Australia and, of course, the opportunities that are there for northern Australia. One of the unique things about Australia is that about 90 per cent of us live in urban areas, 60 per cent live in capital cities and an enormous 80 per cent of us live within 50 kilometres of the coast. We are the most urban concentrated country in the world. There is no doubt about that. With a land mass of 7.6 million square kilometres, people who live in Europe and elsewhere might think that strange, but they might also understand is that 20 per cent of our land mass is desert and much more has very low rainfall.

What is northern Australia? It is the north, of course—not just any one state but the north of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and, of course, Queensland. It is not surprising, therefore, to see such a mix of members speaking to this motion. I want to congratulate the government for forming a select committee on northern Australia. That is a good thing. I get a bit concerned about committees. We seem to be having plenty of them at the moment and too many white papers and too much policy inertia. But this is a big issue, and you cannot criticise the government for taking that initiative and building on the very, very good work of the 2009 Northern Australia Taskforce, which was initiated by the former government.

Policy in northern Australia is not something to be rushed into. The issues are very complex. People would not see it at first blush, but the environment is very fragile—the balance is very fragile—and we must take that into account. The north is where much of our wealth lies and will lie in the future. Of course, much of our mineral deposits are extracted out of northern parts of Australia, including coal, and much of our food at the moment is exported out of the north, including our beef industry and the live export industry. This is a critical industry, worth about half a billion annually to the north, which utilises lands that are not much good for anything but running cattle—therefore, adding diversity to the economies of the north.

The previous speaker, the member for Capricornia, was talking about the opportunities in food in Asia. I think it is at least some times overestimated what role the north can play in our best endeavours to fully capitalise on what I call the Asia-led dining boom. But it will play a role. With innovation, expertise and the right planning from government, it will play a role—and it will need to play a role. If we are to significantly lift our output as well as seek high-yield products for the Asian market, we will need all the arable land that we can secure.

Anyone who has ever flown across the continent heading for Asia—and that is, I am sure, everyone in this chamber—and watched the red desert all the way until you come to the Ord scheme will know what can be done with the right sorts of resources and the right planning. The question becomes of course how sustainable these things can be done, but I have no doubt that the north will play a role in the Asia food boom.

In my experience, the council of Northern Australia is already doing good work there. When I was agriculture minister, I had the opportunity to engage with the regional ministers who form part of that committee. Many of them fortuitously are also agriculture ministers, which I think is a wonderful synergy for those who sit on that committee and for those who are trying to make the most of the opportunities posed in the north.

These things are not as simple as building dams, as important as dams can be and no doubt will be in the future, but I discourage politicians from telling people in the south of the country that we can take on the world if only we build more dams. It is not that simple by any stretch of the imagination. The issues are far more challenging and more complex than that. That is why I welcome this, even if we currently have some policy inertia with the committee, the work of the task force and whatever the government might do with its coming program. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.