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

Deputy Prime Minister, you are aware of the notorious Flinders River water allocations. Almost all of these waters, worth over $180 million, have been granted to just two absentee landlord corporations. This was in contrast to refusal to even consider submissions from the people of the area itself that were based upon economic development, industry and community benefit. The most serious questions of ministerial and departmental impropriety are raised here. In the light of this impoverishment of the hands on to provide for the enrichment of the rich, would the minister consider right to sustenance legislation—rights enshrined in and from the time of the Magna Carta itself?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. At times I stay up late at night deliberating on the issues of Runnymede in 1215 and exactly what was going on between King John and those feudal lords. I do acknowledge that, after a few months, they broke out into a war in any case, so it was not of much use. But he does speak to a rather more substantial issue—the issue of water. Predominantly—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left, and right. The Minister for Immigration and the member for Grayndler are interrupting the minister.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler is claiming he was there. He helped to draft it!

An honourable member: He wrote it!

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House will cease interjecting. The Deputy Prime Minister has the call.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection from the member for Grayndler, who is claiming that he built the Magna Carta. But the issue, of course, is one of water. The water licences for the member for Kennedy are overwhelmingly a state issue, especially on the Flinders. I note the concerns you have. We too are wanting to develop the north and to build more water infrastructure. It is vitally important, and that is why we have put up money for feasibility on 14 sites in Queensland and $130 million on the table for Rookwood Weir. Unfortunately, the Queensland Labor government has been either tardy or unwilling to participate in it—we are still waiting for their support so we can get these things moving. Also in the member's electorate is one of those feasibility studies, at Cloncurry. We have to try and drive these agendas forward, because we know that water is wealth and, if we are driving jobs and creating jobs, we have to create the water infrastructure.

The member for Kennedy can take some solace in the fact that we are hard at work in Tasmania building that same water infrastructure. We have completed Chaffey Dam. We have also put money on the table for the South-West Loddon Pipeline and for the Macalister Irrigation District. These programs are up and running and we want to start more. We want to go further. We want to be the government that has the vision to build the water infrastructure.

I appreciate the trip that I took with the member for Kennedy to Hell's Gates, where we also have put money on the table for the feasibility study on that. That would be a tremendous project. But we need the same sense of fervour, the same sense of excitement as we have seen from the people who built the Snowy Mountains scheme. That is the sort of vision that our nation is looking for. That is the sort of vision that people want from a government, a government that actually believes in the delivery of the tactile, in the things that you can see, rather than standing on their philosophical log and procrastinating and just waiting and waiting and waiting until nothing happens.

So, if it is the vision that you had on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede, where not-so-good King John was taken on by the not-so-good feudal lords, then that is the sort of vision. But, ultimately, the document was sustainable through time, and we want to build the water infrastructure that is sustainable through time for the Australian people.