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

I move:

That this House notes that:

(1) this Government is committed to delivering a White Paper on Developing Northern Australia that will set out a clear and well defined policy platform for unlocking the potential of the north, including consideration of the recommendations of the final report of the Inquiry into the Development of Northern Australia;

(2) providing customs and border security at Townsville Airport is in line with one of the recommendations in the Development of Northern Australia final report;

(3) the extra benefits to trade and tourism are important to opening Townsville to the international market and continuing Townsville's strong economic position in Northern Australia;

(4) this Government is committed to creating more local jobs and opportunities for the North Queensland community; and

(5) this continues the Government mantra of being open for business, and under new management.

Townsville is a fantastic city. What we did recently with the announcement of Townsville's international airport goes to a couple of things that I want to talk about here. First and foremost it says that the government does not create wealth. Government sets the circumstances around which business can employ and business can create wealth. What we have done here is allow the market to decide if Townsville can sustain an international airport—and not government red tape.

This decision says two things about our government. First, it says that the government, under the leadership of Tony Abbott and Warren Truss, acknowledges that money is tight. Even though our department of immigration and border control has saved us billions and billions of dollars by stopping the boats, their budget is always under pressure. This decision to allow Townsville to recommence being an international airport was not a specific election promise. The money had to be found. Minister Scott Morrison—when he had the job—and now Peter Dutton above all respect the taxpayers' dollars. We had to earn it. This is a government which does not drive down the street throwing $50 notes out of the windows.

Secondly, it says that, if you have a good idea, we are open for business. Not one minister turned me away. The PMO has been fantastic in assisting me get this up. It would not have happened without the cooperation of the ministers in charge of border control, Treasury, trade and investment, finance, and infrastructure, and without the PMO playing a crucial role in pulling it all together. I could not be prouder of my leadership team or of being a member of this government representing a city which wants to do more for its citizens each and every day.

Before the last election and ever since I was elected, I have always said that Townsville has to be an international city, if we are going to develop the north of Australia. The largest city north of the Tropic of Capricorn—across the country—is Townsville. We have nearly 200,000 people. We have a fine university base. We have a diversified economy. Townsville is a national hub for this. We must be an international city. We cannot simply look west to the North West Mineral Province and hope for our future. Where is our region? Our region faces the north, the east, the west and the north-west. We are perfectly positioned for the Asian century. We are perfectly positioned to be that conduit and that hub for the development of northern Australia.

I have always said that if you draw a right angle triangle using Townsville as the hub, as the axis point there, you have Papua New Guinea to the north of us and Fiji to the east of us. In that 90 degree arc of a circle you have the Melanesian world. That is where a large percentage of our aid goes, and it is a large area of concern for Australia. It is somewhere Townsville has a very serious role to play.

In Townsville we do not necessarily talk so much about tourism; we talk about visitation. We do not care why you are coming to Townsville. We do not care if you are coming to Townsville to get a tooth pulled. You come to Townsville and you stay a night and you spend a night in a restaurant. We get your investment in our community that way. If we look at our region and you look at places like Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji and all the way round that Melanesian world, Townsville can be that hub when it comes to training, vocational education and training. We have our university. We have our health sector, with the fantastic Townsville hospital, which can play a role in that region. We simply cannot continue to look to the North West Mineral Province west at Mt Isa as the future for our country. What we must do is open up these new markets.

Townsville airport came up with the idea and they actively chased and chased and chased. It got Jetstar and AirAsia interested in international flights. That was our point of differentiation. We had to make sure that we had a plan, that we were not just chasing a tick and a flick and that we had someone who wanted to do it. There is more work to be done, but the people at Townsville Airport Ltd like Kevin Gill and Isabelle Yates have, since before the last election in 2013, been non-stop in trying to make sure that we dot our i's and cross our t's. We have spoken extensively with the Sunshine Coast Airport about the way they have managed it with flights to New Zealand.

The issue here is about cost recovery. The issue here is that, although we have customs and immigration people based at our port in Townsville, they are working full time and the airport is too far away to get them to come over for intermittent flights. So the federal government has had to come to the party and say, 'If it becomes prohibitive when you are talking about a discount route, if the costs for ground control'—to quote David Bowie—'are more than the costs in the air, it simply becomes non-commercial and you will fail.' Townville has failed in that regard before, when it had Strategic Airlines doing flights to Bali. What the federal government has done is come in and said, 'We will back Townsville to make sure that you are in a competitive space.' It is not just Townsville Airport that has pushed for this. We as a city have pushed for this. There are people from Townsville Enterprise, including David Kippin, Trish O'Callaghan and Tracey Lines Lyons, who have been non-stop in their support of this. It is the thing that has brought our city and our region together. Townsville's Chamber of Commerce has been right behind us, all the way through. They have been as supportive as they possibly can. Our point of differentiation is that we are the hub for Northern Australia. We are the ones who have airlines that want to do business there. We have pitched the idea to our northern mayors. We have the support of government. And no-one can say that we cannot do this.

This has not been easy and there is still more work to do. We must look at these things on a cost-recovery basis. Eventually Townsville must become a stand-alone international airport. We cannot continually put our hand out and ensure that we will get these things. Again, I must come back to that basic point when Tony Abbott stood up on 7 September 2013 and said: 'Australia is open for business.' What this decision has done for Townsville is reinforce that position: business is open. We are capable of doing this. I have had northern mayors such as Jenny Hill, Roger Bow, Bill Lowis from the Burdekin, Alf Lacey from Palm Island and Frank Beveridge from Charters Towers come down here for meetings. At every stage during those meetings, including with Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb and Mathias Cormann and Warren Truss's office—all the people involved in this decision—it has been: where to from here? At every stage it has been: what can we do to help you in this space? Yes, money is tight. And, yes, everyone comes down here with their hand out. But we had a plan and we stuck to it. Those are the big things for Townsville.

From here it goes to: where to next? We do have flights that are booked. We have an airline that is ready to go. Townsville must continue to grow. We must develop our airport hub, with a particular emphasis to build on businesses like Flying Colours Aviation, which do respraying of aircraft. They could have set up anywhere in the world, but they chose to set up in Townsville. We can be a mighty power when it comes to turbo prop services support in our region. The Townsville Airport must make sure that we continue to push forward. We will have a city with a mayor, the Chamber of Commerce and the Townsville Enterprise right behind us in that regard.

We have three new state members who must get their head around what has got to happen in this space. We also have a federal member who is very keen to ensure that we keep pushing forward. Like I said, the big thing about this issue is that we recognise that we have made a good start—but it is just a start. No-one—be it Townsville Airport, the Townsville Enterprise, the Chamber of Commerce or me—is saying that this is 'mission accomplished'. What we are saying is that it is step 1 for the growth of Townsville. If we are to develop the north of Australia, if we are to be its hub, then Townsville must be front and centre in that space. We are the biggest city in this space. We are an important regional city centre. We have a university, an army base, a diversified economy and a great port—and so an airport is essential. For us to be able to push through in that space means that we will be able to develop our industries, provide that income and be able to bring our regional incomes, our regional mayors, into Townsville to make sure that we understand what they are chasing.

Andrew Robb has often said that the projects are out there but we must lift our eyes beyond the obvious and look for the things which can be built. If we can do that, if we can attract the interest, if we can chase those big projects and get the private income that goes with it, we will be able to sustain this development all the way through. That is something we take very seriously, and something we should as a parliament take very seriously. Andrew Robb and Tony Abbott have both said that Northern Australia is not the last frontier; it is the next frontier. We will never be the food bowl of Asia, and I think Barnaby Joyce is 100 per cent correct on that. What we will do is service niche markets. We will service them with product, with quality and with assurance when it comes to product certainty, and we will be able to play in that space.

The decision around Townsville airport is the first one we have been about to get through and it something about which the whole city and the region should take great pride. It shows that we are a government that is open for business and open for ideas. I thank the House.

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

Is the motion seconded.

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

Yes, I second the motion. We are obviously pleased to see this development take place in Townsville, and there is a great deal of bipartisanship about that particular project. But I do have to say that, in discussion of northern development, I think we need to clearer eyed. As has often been said, there has been a great deal of perhaps intellectual adventurism that has gone on in our discussion of northern Australia which has really not brought home the bacon. There has perhaps been too much emphasis on the grand and the big project as the thing that is going to turn around the future of northern Australia, and that has resulted in nowhere near the development that perhaps could have taken place. We need to move away from some of the more grandiose projects towards some more fine grain understanding of the environment and the population with whom we are dealing and come up with a response to northern Australia that may be less conducive to the grand press release but is far more conducive to sustainable development.

There is no doubt that northern Australia is, as said recently by a couple of authors in the conversation—Andrew Campbell and Jim Turner—a very special part of the world. It has amazing heritage and values. Yes, there is enormous scope for development, but the focus on dam building and big infrastructure interventions is not really the way that is going to develop this.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

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

I am more than happy to talk about that but, as I said, it has to be an intelligent conversation. The CSIRO have some very interesting things to say about that. For example, they estimate that through investment in genetics and technological innovation and science around forage quality, nutrition and growth the productivity rate for the beef industry can be increased by 40 per cent to 50 per cent. Having a group of scientists from the CSIRO beavering away doing the research, getting the quality of the product and finding out how we match the soils in the northern region with the sustainable availability of water is not quite as glamourous but it is indeed what is going to bring home the bacon more.

In Western Australia, we are not saying that it is all agriculture—though I was very pleased to see that we have a bipartisan or tripartisan view on the point that northern Australia will not be the food bowl of Asia—but there is certainly enormous opportunity to develop our agricultural product. The CSIRO contribution here that we could get a 40 to 50 per cent increase in our beef productivity is very worthwhile.

We have to be looking at more vertical integration. In the Kimberley, we see extraordinary work being done in places like Kilto Station, Yeeda Station and Fossil Downs Station. They are finding out where their good soils are, where the sustainable water supply is and, without giant damming systems, are able to provide a level of forage quality that sees that they can turn off finished-off cattle—cattle that can be slaughtered at abattoirs that are currently being built out of Broome.

We note that there are abattoir programs across the top of Australia. We can get more value-add from our beef products. We can create more jobs for the communities up there, particularly the Indigenous communities. These are jobs which they have expressed great interest in and which help them develop their assets in the north of Australia. We need to consider the Indigenous population in the north. In Western Australia, the Indigenous population is 40 per cent in the Kimberley and 12 per cent in the Pilbara. I think perhaps a lot of the work that has been done in Northern Australia has not taken into account, as much as it should, the need to integrate those people and to ensure that the Indigenous economy is integrated with the broader economy.

One of the things that we have to see is a lot more investment in the science. We have got to be prepared to consider the evidence that has come before us from the CSIRO that, if we set up huge dams, there are going to be a lot of downstream consequences. For example, the impact that that will have on the fishing industry alone will be severe. You cannot take large streams of nutrients out of the system and not expect this to have a consequence.

We need to look at the cost-benefit analysis. We could build these great dams at massive expense. But if we invested that same degree of money into more fine-grain projects, would we get a better outcome? The importance here is to recognise that this is a unique area and that the sorts of responses that we might have seen that worked in the 1950s in the Snowy Mountains scheme are not necessarily the responses for Northern Australia, and that Northern Australia has particular natural advantages that we need to exploit. It should be an area, for example, where renewable energy is an incredibly important part of the energy mix.

We look at the Pilbara where there is a great need for additional energy resources. Yet it is only now that we are coming to see that we need an integrated—and I am very pleased that our Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia really pushed this idea—power solution for the Pilbara. It gives us the opportunity to hang off large-scale renewables, exploiting the climatic conditions of the north to create a benefit.

I want also to include a bit of a plug for the inclusion of Western Australian universities in the growNORTH initiative. I am very concerned that Western Australian universities have been kept out of this at a meaningful level. They need a seat at the table in the formation of partnership. I have been talking to the chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia about this. We do not just want to be junior partners. Three universities in Western Australia, Murdoch University, Curtin University of Technology and the University of Western Australia, have agreed to come together to form one entity so they can participate jointly in this.

As I say, underpinning this—we need to get the science right on this. We need to get the science right on the climate. We cannot ignore the climate. We cannot ignore the weather. We cannot ignore the additional challenges that are coming our way. We need to make sure that we can adapt to those. We are not going to be able to do that without an intelligent engagement with the science, and we want to see Western Australia being part of that scientific development.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker Landry, I am pleased to speak on this motion with you in the chair, as a fellow northern Australian. As a fellow north Queenslander from above the Tropic of Capricorn, you know all too well the benefits of living in northern Australia but also the challenges at the moment. Certainly your electorate of Capricornia is facing some very big challenges with Cyclone Marcia crossing the coast, and you have been a tower of strength for that community.

That said, I was fortunate enough to take part in the inquiry into the development of northern Australia and had the opportunity to see much of Australia beyond the beautiful coastal strip of north Queensland that I call home. My electorate of Dawson is some 400 kilometres long, stretching from Mackay to Townsville. During that inquiry I saw the potential just waiting to happen. The chairman of that inquiry, beside me, the member for Leichhardt, definitely saw the potential. There was a lot of potential. The top half of Australia is home to about four per cent of our population, yet it is home to a wealth of resources and opportunities—land, water, minerals, sunshine, beaches and islands, fisheries and people who are not afraid to work hard for a living.

While our proximity to Asia might not make us a super food bowl, it does provide enormous opportunities for agriculture, for tourism, for exports and for trade. We have some of the largest reserves of some of the best and cleanest coal in the world, which could be used to provide electricity to millions of the world's poorest people for the first time. Doing so would also provide enormous wealth to this country through royalties, company tax, and income tax paid on behalf of thousands of people who could be employed in delivering our natural resources to the world. Thousands of jobs and hundreds of businesses hang in the balance in north Queensland now, because the Labor Party is too busy pandering to extreme greens to worry about the people they are supposed to represent—and that is, the worker, or in this case the out-of-worker.

But there are other key industries that need to be encouraged and developed. The Liberal-National government is already implementing policy in these areas and the upcoming white paper will identify priority projects and policies that will bring about the best results for little or no cost. This government has already proven a willingness and desire to invest in infrastructure that counts, spending money and creating jobs in the production of assets that will deliver for the economy and deliver for Australia and northern Australia.

I can point to the $6.7 billion investment that we will be making over a 10-year period in the Bruce Highway, which is the lifeblood of north Queensland. I know the member for Kennedy is very passionate about that as well, as is the member for Herbert and the member for Leichhardt. We all agree that that money needs to go there. Already work has begun on a number of projects.

The planning and detailed design of the Mackay Ring Road is well underway and we hope to see the construction of that commencing in 2016-17. Another important infrastructure area for North Queensland is the mobile phone network, where black spots present safety and productivity issues. The government's Mobile Black Spot Program is working with industry to secure the best value for money for taxpayers in addressing high-priority network black spots.

As we know, the north sees very little rain during the dry season, but during the wet it really rains. So new infrastructure in the form of dams would provide a steady, reliable source of water for resources, agriculture and communities. I point to the Urannah dam project, on the doorstep of my electorate—in your electorate, in fact, Madam Deputy Speaker—which would open up an area of greenfield irrigation development only 100 kilometres from existing agriculture: the sugar industry of the Burdekin to the north and the horticultural industry of Bowen to the south.

Construction of a dam is a long-term project, so Urannah is not a project to solve the immediate problems of unemployment experienced in the town of Bowen. Labor and the Greens getting out of the way of job-creating projects like Abbot Point and the Galilee Basin is the best way to do that. But the long-term future of Bowen could be secured through Urannah and also through the extension of the Elliot Main Channel, which is partly constructed already. The Elliot Main Channel is partly built and is designed to transport 60,000 megalitres of water from the Burdekin through 93 kilometres of open channel and then 63 kilometres of pipeline.

There is more to the north than agriculture. Tourism is one aspect. I have to congratulate the member for Herbert for the efforts that he has made to secure government funding to deliver international flights into Townsville airport. For my part, I am working on tourism in the Whitsundays, trying to remove some of the crazy regulations on taxation, duties and the environment that we have in relation to super yachts coming into the Whitsundays. If we could get them there it would drive in $50,000 every week for every superyacht that is docked in the port. That would mean jobs—jobs for that community. We have to get northern Australia booming; it is vitally important.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Perth gave a most extraordinary speech. She said there really should not be any development and there should not be any dams. She said we should listen to CSIRO because they have some good ideas. I have been listening to them for 42 years and I am dammed if I have heard any ideas on northern development, outside of water proposals. And as for increasing cattle production by 40 per cent, I can absolutely assure the House that if that was possible to do we would have already done it.

The reality is that we are probably looking at a 40 per cent decrease in cattle production because of the droughts. We do not need to have droughts. Virtually every single station property in North Queensland has water running past it every year. So, as long as they were given 300 hectares of freehold irrigation land we would not have such a thing as a drought in northern Australia because, unlike the rest of Australia—if not the rest of the world—we are on rivers and creeks that run every year.

Let me be very specific: my home town is Cloncurry. My family have lived in or around the Cloncurry River for 120 years. It has run every single year for 120 years, and Cloncurry is 500 kilometres from the sea. So it is as inland as you can get.

So what are we doing with this land that the good Lord has bequeathed us? What are we doing with it? I will tell you what we are doing with it. Seven million hectares of what was designated on the old map as the best natural grasslands in Australia—I am talking of the Sun map, a commercial map you bought at the garage—now does not have that grassland on it. The map should have on it 'prickly acacia infestation' because seven million hectares of beautiful grasslands has been destroyed by prickly acacia.

The honourable member for Perth may not understand that nature does not stand still. We should involve ourselves to ensure that the beautiful, natural environment which the good Lord gave us, is protected and turned into a useful asset for the people of the world. If Australians seriously considered it they would realise that if you take a 100-kilometre coastal strip out of northern Australia and a little dot around Darwin, there would be about 100,000 people living in an area almost the size of Europe, which has a population of 600 million or 700 million. What is that area producing? It is producing $100 million-worth of cattle and little bit of tourism trade in Darwin. The rest of its production is so small that it does not require mentioning.

So we have an area the size of Europe with an average rainfall of 30 inches or 40 inches. In the electorate of the honourable member for Leichhardt the rainfall is over 60 inches. And what is that area producing? It is producing $100 million-worth of cattle, and that is it. We look after it so well that seven million hectares of natural grasslands has been completely destroyed by prickly acacia tree. If we were to take seven per cent of that water and two per cent of that land we could produce $20,000 million-worth of prawn and fish product and we would have the cattle production.

I do take your point: we can do processing in northern Australia. And we could produce all of the transport petrol requirements for Australia. We send $25,000 million every year to the Middle East to buy petrol when that money could be going into Northern Australia. If we use seven per cent, 93 per cent of that water will run, as it has always run, to the sea.

And what the young lady from Perth does not understand is that the northern rivers just go: whoosh. They are only there for two or three months of the year. No matter how many dams you build, you are still going to have a huge flood at the start of the year and nothing at the end of the year. The change to nature is negligible. All you will see at the mouth of the Mitchell River will be a flood that is probably two feet lower than the annual 60-foot flood that it normally is. That is the only difference that you will see, and yet in return for that we can produce food where our nearest neighbour— (Time expired)

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

It certainly gives me pleasure to rise and stand in support of the member for Herbert's outstanding motion in confirming the government's commitment to the delivery of the white paper on the development of Northern Australia. There have been proposals on this since 1935, and a whole lot of opportunities that have been squandered in the past. There is no doubt about it: this government is absolutely committed to deliver on this one.

The white paper was due out at the end of February. Unfortunately, with the change of Queensland government, we have to wait until the Queensland Premier signs off on it, because it is important that the state and territories have ownership of that. We will certainly have the white paper out well and truly before the May budget, and there is no question about that for those that may be concerned about it.

I was the chair of the committee that travelled around looking at opportunities that were there, and the opportunities are endless. I notice that the member for Herbert, rightfully so, boasted about recent achievements in relation to the Townsville Airport. We are recommending that our regional airports in Northern Australia increase capacity and are given the opportunity to do that. If I could just do a little bit of boasting of my own: our humble Cairns international airport last year had 4.3 million passengers. This year over 4.6 million passengers are expected through the airport—not a bad achievement for a small, regional airport—and we are certainly looking at growing.

When we talk about customs and border security, again we are talking Townsville Airport, but we also need that expanded right across Northern Australia. Our border security agencies are based here in Northern Australia. I have been arguing very strongly that the HMAS Choules should be removed from Sydney and based in Far-North Queensland. We would love to have it at HMAS Cairns. Given that the LHCs have been recently retired, it would help to replace that capacity.

There are lots of other things. We also should be looking at CSIRO, if we are going to talk about expanding our agriculture, which we definitely have to do. We need extension offices there, and we need agencies like the CSIRO expanded into our regions to be able to offer those services to support the growth in that area.

I heard the member for Kennedy talking about water. He is absolutely right: of course we have learnt a lot from the past but we are effectively able to build dams these days considering all of the likely impacts. We talk about Nullinga on the Walsh River, which he talked about, which will significantly increase the capacity of the tablelands with the addition of the Tinaroo Dam. It will also give a long-term water supply for the growth of Cairns as a city. The triple benefit is that it will ensure that the existing hydro station at Barron Gorge can reach full capacity, so providing a baseload for renewal power.

In our report—and we are really looking forward to it—we talked about roads, we talked about the Hann Highway, we talked about the rebuilding of the beef roads, and we talked about the Tanami. They are all very important things that we need to do.

The member for Perth mentioned the integrated energy power grid at the Pilbara. Absolutely that is a recommendation that we have in the report. She talked also about the university involvement, and I am looking forward to going to Perth to speak to her universities, because it is very important that they come on board with JCU, Charles Darwin University and, of course, CQU to get that northern Australia expertise. Those universities are going to play an integral part in a whole range of opportunities that will be available there.

We talked about agriculture. We talked about fisheries—expanding on fisheries. Aquaculture is another one. You have to ask the question: why is it that there has not been a new project on the eastern seaboard for 13 years, yet according to CSIRO we have 1.3 million hectares across northern Australia that is suitable for aquaculture?

So there are lots of opportunities out there. We are certainly very much looking forward to capturing many of those opportunities in the white paper when it is released in the not-too-distant future. Once we have those opportunities identified in that white paper, we are certainly looking forward to the opportunities we can create for private enterprise to invest and for enabling legislation to happen. I think northern Australia has a great future. (Time expired)

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

Northern Australia, stripped to a 100-kilometre belt, is an area comparable to the size of Europe. If it were a separate country, it would be one of the wettest countries on earth. Taking out that little narrow strip and a little dot around Darwin, it is populated by fewer than 70,000 people; there is no-one living there. Yet here is an area with tens of millions of square kilometres of arable land. Here is an area awash with water; it has three-quarters of Australia's water. Outside northern Australia, there actually is no water for irrigation except on the Murray-Darling and little, tiny, short streams that run from the divide into the sea, so there is no potential for development of agriculture outside the northern third of Australia.

Let's have a look at what we have done. In the last 30 years, there has not been a single dam or a single weir, yet each government has come in, as this government has come in, and said, 'Oh, we're going to develop the water resources of the North.' Where? Getting out a white paper is not developing a resource. If under the Bjelke-Petersen government you had put out a white paper or had a study on it, you would get sacked from the ministry immediately, and I can name you three ministers who were sacked for just that. As he quite rightly said: 'If you can't make a decision then get the hell out of this room. We make decisions; we don't say what we're going to do.' We have discussions with the alternative governments in Brisbane and the LNP—some of them—about what we are going to do. Well, we are not interested in what you are going to do. When we went to an election in the eighties, we would tell you what we had done. We would not tell you what we were going to do, because no-one is going to trust a politician's promise.

Talking about another white paper—for heaven's sake! We have had white papers and green papers and purple papers and tissue papers, and what have we got out of it? I will tell you what we got: getting those papers out slowed us down. Do not listen to me, Madam Deputy Speaker. A candidate for the LNP in the last election told the minister in Canberra what he could do with his white paper. I cannot use his language here in this chamber, but we are not interested in white papers. There has been $120 million spent on studies and white papers in the last 30 years, but there has not been one politician with enough ability to build a single weir across a single creek—not a shovel-load of concrete across a gutter in 30 years. Everyone gets up and talks about 'developing the North' and 'food bowl of Asia' and, 'We're going to build all these dams.' Do not talk about it. Tell us you are doing it or shut your mouth, because we are sick of hearing about your white papers. No-one has even bothered to attend the meetings. I mean no disrespect to the member for Leichhardt, who I think is very genuine in his attributes.

In the minute or so that is still available to me, let me paint for you a picture. Instead of spending $25,000 million a year to buy petrol from overseas, we produce the petrol ourselves—renewable so that it does not send CO2 up into the atmosphere. Yes, it does send CO2up into the atmosphere and the sugarcane and grain pull it back down the next year. So it goes up and down; it does not stay up there. Al Gore, in his book, An inconvenient truth, says ethanol was the first answer to CO2. Every country on earth is now doing ethanol, with the exception of Australia and the African states. That is outside of the oil producers, of course, in the Middle East. Every single country is doing it, and they are not doing it to look after their farmers, I can assure you. They are doing it because of health reasons. In Australia, surely it is preferable that we have a source of our own petrol—which we do not have, for the first time in our history, virtually. If we have a hiccup in our security, all they need do is cut off our petrol and it will close down the whole country—because it all comes from overseas. We can produce $10,000 million worth of petrol every year without much outlay and capital cost whatsoever. That is what we can do.

We can produce $10,000 million worth over a period of 10 years in prawn and fish farming. We can do that immediately. We can stop the erosion and destruction of our natural flora and fauna with the creeping Prickly acacia tree. We can stop that by putting strip pasture along the banks of our creeks, increasing our cattle production 600 per cent. (Time expired)

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

I am very pleased to speak on this private member's business which is of fundamental interest to me and my constituents in Durack and, I would like to think, people throughout our nation and internationally—what we like to call the 'great untapped North'. I acknowledge the importance of northern Australia and the government's intent to unlock its potential through the northern Australia white paper process and the importance of strengthening links between the east and west, regionally and internationally, through good planning and good investment in vital infrastructure.

I am a member of the joint select committee that undertook the inquiry into the development of northern Australia. Whilst we have completed that inquiry and published our report, Pivot north, our work continues as we review the green paper on the development of northern Australia. Our committee looks to the imminent white paper on northern Australia, noting that Pivot north's recommendations will dovetail into the white paper. That will be the process.

Turning to the private members business raised today, I agree that the provision of customs and border security at Townsville Airport is worthy and in line with the recommendations in Pivot north. While such an investment would underpin trade and tourism growth for Townsville and Queensland, the recommendations in the report promote a more expansive view. We must think of northern Australia holistically and cease thinking of single sites and focus on development of the northern region in its own right. If we do that, we will all benefit.

I am a proud country girl and very proud to be representing the regions—in particular the north-west—however, as a federal politician, I look forward to the day my constituents say, 'Welcome to the north of Australia.' That will be because they are all looking east-west, rather than as they do in Western Australia now, north-south. If they start looking east-west, I am sure there will be more business solutions and opportunities for them.

I highlight recommendation 26 from Pivot north, which promotes the design and implementation of a 20-year strategy for staged development of capital infrastructure in northern Australia, including increasing the capacity of ports and airports to facilitate an increase in volumes of traffic and trade. Our airports in the north, including Townsville, Broome, Kununurra, Exmouth, Derby, Darwin—to name a few—should be developed, and I believe they are the key, to increased trade and tourism across the whole of northern Australia.

To further illustrate the importance of adopting an inclusive predisposition to the development of the north, I just thought I would mention a few of the recommendations from the Pivot north report. These include the creation of a department of northern Australia; committing funds to key roads such as the Tanami Road and National Highways; investigating potential for a special economic zone for northern Australia; and development of a tourism strategy for promoting northern Australia, domestically and internationally. I would just pause there, as I would like to mention and strongly support the development of a casino in Karratha as a fabulous tourism opportunity not only for northern Australia but also the whole of Western Australia. Other recommendations included the investigation of transfer facilities for cattle across Australia—very important to the people of Durack; the creation of a cooperative research centre for northern agriculture; the design and implementation of a 20-year strategy for staged development of horticulture and agriculture.

Speaking of agriculture, I just want to acknowledge Mr Philip Hams, who is visiting Parliament House today. Philip hails from Gogo Station in the Fitzroy region of the Kimberley. Philip is very passionate and he is here to lobby for development of agriculture in the Fitzroy region in conjunction with the local Indigenous people. He is indeed a northern warrior.

The development of the north, as we have heard throughout this debate today, needs to be planned for the long-term benefit of our children and our children's children. But let us not kid ourselves. We know that there are impediments, but they can be overcome. These impediments include the requirement for population growth, the absence of physical capital infrastructure, and also the absence of social infrastructure in many places. People will need to be encouraged to go to the north and to stay there. I and many of my colleagues who represent people from the northern parts of Australia know that it is a great place to live. We also know that in many parts there is a high rate of liveability.

I am very proud that this government is committed to delivering a white paper on developing Northern Australia that will set out a clear and well-defined policy platform for unlocking the potential of the north. But, like many of the speakers before me today, I actually want action—I am tired of talk and I am tired of papers—and the people of the north deserve nothing less.

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

I missed the contribution by the member for Herbert, but I assume that when he, in the motion, speaks about new customs and border security arrangements at Townsville Airport he is talking about the opportunity to secure international flights. I am sure that is something that the opposition would be happy to support. Maybe I should have consulted my transport spokesperson before saying that, but it sounds like a reasonable proposition to me and one which would be good for the local economy there.

From what I have seen of the debate, it has become a much broader debate not inconsistent with the motion, as put, about the economic development of Northern Australia. It is a debate we should be having in this place and one we should be having in this place on a regular basis. There are very significant opportunities for us in Northern Australia, for the people who live in Northern Australia, for the businesses which operate in Northern Australia and of course for the country more generally, because of the potential it has for our national economy—and particularly when we think about the opportunities further to our north in terms of what I call the 'dining' boom.

My concern though is that we have been doing a fair bit of talking about the development of Northern Australia in this place over the course of the last 16 or 17 months without doing much about it. We have seen the promise of a white paper which is yet to be delivered. We had a joint select committee established with great fanfare, which was talked about a lot, but not much action since. I think we got some fairly sensible recommendations out of the committee process, but the government is yet to respond in any substantial way.

By contrast, when Labor was last in government, we established an Office of Northern Australia. We had a minister for Northern Australia. We had a significant coordination effort across state and territory governments working together to lower barriers to investment, and to properly coordinate strategies and plans for Northern Australia. Continuity is important in these matters. The truth is that we have had a hiatus for the last 16 or 17 months. We have had policy inertia while the government of the day talks about the development of Northern Australia rather than concentrating on doing something about it.

I also want to highlight some inconsistencies here. People like to talk about what governments need to do. Yes, that is important. I have mentioned a few: developing strategies, coordination, lowering barriers to investment et cetera. But it is the private sector that in the end will determine our success or the extent of the success in Northern Australia.

Thanks to the Greener Pastures report, we know that to fully capitalise on the food opportunities in Asia we will need around $500 billion of investment in infrastructure in this country out to 2050. In this world in which the competition for global capital is intense, this will not be easy. As we have a relatively small population, with limited savings, by definition and by necessity much of that investment will come from foreign capital. What we do not need at the moment is a government putting additional barriers in the way of those inflows of foreign capital. That is exactly what the government has done by reducing the FIRB threshold for investment in agricultural land and agri-business—although I must note they are still debating what the threshold will be for agri-business.

We need to be open to foreign investment. Yes, we should be discerning about who invests, where they invest and how they invest. We do need a register. The Labor Party first committed to an open and transparent investment register. But the government has given no additional resources to the FIRB for this new process. We are going to have a logjam of applications, most of which are completely unnecessary in terms of FIRB scrutiny. This is not the way to welcome foreign investment into this country. Therefore, this is not the way to ensure that we have the infrastructure we will need to properly and fully develop Northern Australia.

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

I rise to address the motion moved by the member for Herbert, for which I thank him. The reason I want to be involved in this is that the electorate of Solomon, and indeed the whole of the Northern Territory, has a lot to offer in terms of effort to unlock the economic potential of Northern Australia. I see the member for Lingiari in here and I am sure he will agree with me.

Before the 2013 election the coalition released a policy entitled The coalition's 2030 vision for developing Northern Australia. We are determined to ensure that the North gets the attention it deserves. We are proposing that by 2030 Northern Australia could drive growth by developing premium food from a food bowl of the North, growing the tourist economy in the north to two million visitors annually, and by building a $150 billion energy export industry with a focus on clean and efficient energy.

In my view, Darwin is the best equipped city in Northern Australia to meet the challenges of the coming century. I know that the member for Herbert will disagree with me, because I am sure he thinks it is Townsville. I know that the member for Lingiari will probably think that it is Alice Springs. Then there are a few in the west, such as the member for Durack. But I am speaking now so I get to say that Darwin is the best place. The reason is that we already have a lot of pieces in place. Darwin has a major airport capable of handling any commercial aircraft, and it is a pivotal location. Within four hours flying time to the south there are six mainland capital cities, 20 major trading ports, 23 international airports and just under 23 million people. However, going the same distance north reaches eight international capital cities, 36 major trading ports, 69 international airports and a potential market of nearly half a billion people. So I think that puts us in good stead.

We also have a deep-water port capable of handling ships up to 80,000 tonnes. Adjacent to that is a major freight hub connecting to rail and road. Darwin and the Top End have a large and highly-skilled workforce, with expertise in agriculture, resources, construction, fisheries and tourism.

As I stand here today, my electorate is already reaping the benefits of our strategic location and our open-for-business mentality. Last week the Prime Minister and I opened the $90 million meat-processing facility just outside Darwin in the member for Lingiari's electorate. This facility will give Australia the ability to tap into South-East Asia's growing demand for beef. It will provide jobs for locals and a means for the Northern Territory Australian beef producers to sell directly to a local supplier, and it is a great example of the sort of value adding that will be great for Australia's economy.

A multibillion-dollar facility is under construction at Blaydon Point to refine gas that will be sold to Japan. Thousands of people are employed directly in the construction, and the flow-on the effects have resulted in a boom for the local economy.

I am proud to stand here today as part of the coalition government which is delivering both infrastructure and the business environment needed to develop the North. The carbon tax was effectively a tax on remoteness and in Northern Australia the energy needed to cool our homes and our offices, the energy needed to travel vast distances and the energy needed to manufacture much-needed goods was taxed unnecessarily. So the people in North Australia are actually delighted that the carbon tax has gone and they are actually delighted that the mining tax has gone.

There are still challenges to be met, and the coalition government is working to meet those. I am determined to work with both my coalition colleagues and my Northern Territory government colleagues to ensure that the Top End and, indeed, all of the Northern Territory, is at the forefront of the dialogue about developing North Australia. As I said, Darwin should be known as the capital of North Australia. I thank the member for Herbert for bringing this motion to the House and giving me the opportunity to talk about how wonderful my electorate it is.

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

This motion gives an opportunity to talk about a range of things, quite clearly. Whilst I agree broadly with the sentiments of those who have spoken previously, I do have some major issues about the current governance in the Northern Territory which I think detracts substantially from our attractiveness as a place for investment by the wider community. The Northern Territory government is basically dysfunctional.

But I do not want to talk about that any more today. I would like to talk about an individual who has been an advocate of developing Northern Australia now for many years. Sadly, this individual passed away over the weekend. He was a very good friend of mine—Kwementyaye 'Tracker' Tilmouth—who I worked with at the Central Land Council many years ago.

Tracker was an extraordinary man, a member of the stolen generation who once said, 'They made a mistake when they took us away; they educated us,' meaning that he became aware of a whole range of things that he could possibly do about the plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Northern Territory, but most particularly about himself. He went away subsequently to get a degree in agricultural management at university in South Australia. He came back to the Northern Territory and worked as the director of the Central Land Council, and he was instrumental in changing the way people thought about using Aboriginal land for economic development.

He was a key to the development of Centrefarm, a quite innovative proposal which was developed around the idea of how to use horticulture on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory and most particularly in Central Australia. And very successful they have been. He showed how you are able to develop Aboriginal land. He showed how you could use the resources within the land—that is, water—to develop horticultural and agricultural services in the bush. They are doing quite well at the moment, but they could do significantly better.

But it was not only in horticulture; he had great innovative ideas around the pastoral industry, the engagement with the pastoral industry more broadly and the use of Aboriginal land.

But it is not only in horticulture; he had great innovative ideas around the pastoral industry and the engagement with the pastoral industry more broadly and the use of Aboriginal land. He has great vision about the role of the pastoral industry and the capacity of Aboriginal landowners to use the land resources they have for the pastoral industry and for their own community's economic benefit. He was—though sadly no longer—at the forefront of forging new relationships between the pastoral industry and Aboriginal landowners. He was also a great believer in the mining industry and, in working as a consultant subsequent to his employment at the Central Land Council, played a significant role in talking to and with the mining industry about developing mines on Aboriginal land again.

He will be missed greatly by all those who knew him. I think it will be some time before we see his like again, in terms of someone who had a vision around what the North could look like by engaging with Aboriginal traditional owners as key instruments and drivers of economic development. Sadly, that is not the case in the broader community where, broadly speaking, Aboriginal people are taken for granted and are seen as the subjects of investment rather than being owners of investment or partners of investment and people who can drive change. It is very important to contemplate what that all means—and he was someone who believed in it; knew how to do it; articulated on behalf of traditional owners their best interests at their direction; and, at the same time, was able to sit around a board table and talk about international economics and the books of major companies. He could talk about all of these things. He was a man for all seasons, in many ways. He could sit down in the dirt and talk to traditional owners in language about a range of things and, at the same time, he could sit a mining company's directors table and talk in their language about mining, pastoral issue, horticulture, agriculture or, indeed, fishing.

He will be sadly missed. He was a close personal friend of mine. To his wonderful wife, Kathy, and their children Cathryn, Shaneen and Amanda: God bless you.

Debate adjourned.