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

Prime Minister, are you aware 93 per cent of Australia's land mass contains 74 per cent of our water but only one million people? Are you aware that North Queensland's north-western gulf has three of Australia's biggest rivers and has 11 irrigation occupation cultivation production ballot projects? Prime Minister, you are aware of Carl von Clausewitz—a people without land will look for a land without people. If Queensland's auction system is allowed, big corporations—foreign—will get everything, all of the water, and locals nothing. Prime Minister, will these 11 projects, based on the Griffith-Emerald-Mareeba experience, take 300,000 people from big city slum land into a prosperous golden future? (Time expired)

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for his question and for his strong commitment, in particular, to the Hughenden irrigation scheme that he and I share a great passion for, not just that scheme and its impact for the north-west of Queensland but for the CopperString Project, which is absolutely vital to unleashing the considerable economic potential of that region. The Hughenden irrigation scheme—the dam—would hold in the order of 200,000 megalitres that will unlock up to 10,000 hectares of diversified crops on the southern side of the Flinders River, and we are looking forward to receiving that business case next month. We only discussed this week, as we do on many occasions, how we need the Queensland government to support this project. It is an incredibly important project for North Queensland and for north-west Queensland, and we urge the Queensland government to work with us to deliver this project and to get the dozers on the ground—utes and boots—to get this project moving. The member for Kennedy and I, and the minister for infrastructure and his predecessor, have been working to get this project moving, but the Queensland government are yet to come on board and actually ensure that we can get this approved so we can get the jobs, so we can get the wealth and so we can access the resources that are so important for Australia's economic future.

The member for Kennedy understands that if you don't access the resources of our nation and manage them properly for our wealth then we can't defend our country. We can't go and have over two per cent of our national economy invested in our defence forces and see that increasing into the future and embrace the massive defence projects that are going to keep Australia safe unless we are also making the same decisions to support our resources industries, to support our agricultural industries and, in particular, to support the projects that underpin their success.

The Hughenden irrigation scheme is one such important project of many. We have more than 3½ billion dollars for dams, weirs and pipelines through the National Water Grid Fund. More than $1.7 billion has been committed for the construction of 72 water infrastructure projects across the country. Fourteen infrastructure projects have been delivered, including the Charleston Dam in Queensland. That was completed in December 2020 and is expected to deliver 100 megalitres of water per annum to Forsayth and 500 megalitres of water to Georgetown. There is the Scottsdale Irrigation Scheme, which the member for Riverina, I know, was a great champion of, in Tasmania. The Sunraysia Modernisation Project in Victoria was completed in October 2019 and is expected to deliver some 25,000 megalitres of water. The Liberals and the Nationals—and I happily concede and agree the member for Kennedy also—know how important these projects are. (Time expired)