Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has decided to put the money in to do the engineering work on the Hells Gate Dam. It will arguably be the biggest irrigation project in the nation's history by itself, but it is also Bradfield's stage 1. It will produce seven per cent of Australia's petrol which is clean—ethanol, of course. The former American Vice-President Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth said the first solution to the CO2 problem in the world is ethanol. It will produce 1½ per cent of Australia's electricity and almost all of North Queensland's electricity and will feed nearly a million head of cattle as well.

With NQBE at Ingham and Austcane at Ayr, they will collectively produce clean energy forever—800 megawatts, which is how much we need in North Queensland. They will also both produce ethanol. The Tully realignment will produce a further 600 megawatts. That is all of our peak load for North Queensland and all of our base— (Time expired)