Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Water infrastructure is just as essential to the agriculture industry and life in the regional centres as it is to the big cities. Without affordable water, our nation grinds to a halt. Water means life. Water means jobs. Water means economic security for both our future on the land and in the cities. We need to make every effort to droughtproof Flynn and, of course, the rest of the nation. There are two major river systems in Flynn. One is the mighty Fitzroy, the second-biggest catchment area in Australia, and the second is the Burnett River, which drains all of North and South Burnett and enters the sea at Bargara near Bundaberg.

It's a picture that Queensland farmers are too familiar with: drought or bust. Drought or flood is what we've learnt to live with over the years. A deluge will often come with the cyclones we've had in the last few years. They do a lot of devastation to not only the crops that are already in the ground but also to the residences along the Burnett River and the Fitzroy River. My plan, and the government's plan, is to capture some of this water that flows out to sea. If you get too much water flowing out to sea, it kills our sea grass, which is essential for the reef. So it makes sense to me that we capture five or six per cent of that water flow. For environmental reasons, you can't stop it all, but we need to invest in dams, weirs and on-farm storage to help our farmers, to regulate the flow in our rivers in flood times and to let water go in drought times to the people who need that water.

At the 2016 election, the Turnbull government committed to funding $130 million—50 per cent—for the construction of the Rookwood Weir, and that's been in the news quite a bit lately. The project would not only deliver water but also deliver jobs, exports and prosperity to Central Queensland. Last week, the Queensland state government and the opposition finally realised the significance of this project and have agreed to fund 50 per cent of the project. Our federal government had previously committed to funding the project 50-50, but the cost of building the weir has jumped from $260 million to $350 million. I ask myself, 'Why?' However, the building of the weir is a must.

To give you an example of how water can improve the outcomes for certain regions, a huge dam was built at Imbil back in 1968 under the federal minister Mr Fairbairn. The Fairbairn Dam was built in '68 at a cost of $30 million. That today has resulted in $5.56 billion worth of product coming out of Emerald, which is the town closest to the Fairbairn Dam. That goes to show what water can do for an area. Emerald grows a lot of crops. It has the biggest citrus farm in the Southern Hemisphere. It has grapes. It keeps their coal mines going because they need water too. There is wheat and there is cotton, which is a pretty big user of water. It's as plain as the nose on your face that water is the way to go. I'm all for weirs, dams and on-farm storage. On-farm storage is where farmers will build a ring tank and, in that ring tank, they will capture flows from the rain that falls on their properties. In real flood times, they'll be allowed to pump out of the river system. In all, it's a great project. (Time expired)