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

We recently passed through this House, unexpectedly, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Bill 2016. It is an important piece of legislation that many of us would have liked to have had the opportunity to talk about. It is very important that we have this $5 billion concessional loan for infrastructure projects in the north if we are to drive northern development forward, but I need to alert the House to the unfairness inherent in this bill to Western Australia.

The definition of 'northern Australia' is given generally as above the Tropic of Capricorn, but it includes in Queensland Gladstone and in the Northern Territory all of the area between the Tropic of Capricorn and the 26th parallel. No deviations are provided for in Western Australia, the most remote part. Oddly, reference is made in the definition to Newman and Exmouth, but both of these are in fact above the Tropic of Capricorn. In my view this is just a device to make it look like some exceptions have been made for Western Australia when the opposite is the case. I really urge this House, this parliament and the government to consider amending this so we also have the 26th parallel, which has historically been the boundary for the north in Western Australia. This way it would allow Carnarvon and Shark Bay— (Time expired)