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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Northern communities cannot afford fresh fruit and vegetables. This causes numerous deaths from malnutrition called 'diabetes'. Bank finance for a market gardener, a commercial enterprise or even a home requires a title deed of security for a loan. A local tribunal—shire council, native title holders and tribal elders—is drafting title deeds. Will the government consider endorsing such legal instruments, the only highway out of the current desert of inaction?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for his question and I appreciate that there are many issues that are bedevilling northern Australia. His concerns are shared by a number of members right around this chamber. The members for Leichhardt, Herbert, Dawson, Capricornia, Solomon and Durack are always raising with me some of the practical difficulties for our fellow Australians who are living in northern Australia, and the high price of food is certainly one of those issues. The best way to tackle this is to have a stronger economy and a higher population north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and that is exactly what the government's white paper on the development of northern Australia is designed to achieve.

I know that the member for Kennedy is interested in this, as are so many other members of this House. We have already made some significant announcements foreshadowing the white paper. There is the $5 billion concessional loan facility for economic infrastructure in northern Australia. There is the $100 million towards beef roads in northern Australia. There is the commitment foreshadowed by the government to build the Hann Highway, which will be a flood-free route, to the south. And one of the things that I know the member for Kennedy and indeed the members for Capricornia, Dawson, Herbert, Leichhardt, Solomon and Durack are interested in is better water storages in northern Australia, because that will certainly help with the food issue. There are a number of dams that I think should be looked at: the Nullinga Dam behind Cairns, the Rookwood Dam near Rockhampton, and Ord stage 3. What we do not want is a continuation of the dam phobia that operated for far too long in this country because of the antidevelopment alliance between the Labor Party and the Greens.

The northern development white paper will address these issues. And yes, the member for Kennedy is right: land title is an important issue in northern Australia. You cannot build a secure future if you do not have secure title. It will be important to try to ensure that Indigenous land in particular can be an economic asset as well as a cultural and spiritual one. All these issues will be addressed by the northern development white paper, and I do not think the member for Kennedy or indeed the other members of this chamber will be disappointed.