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

During the flooding, once again Cairns was completely cut off. The road north was blocked and, for a considerable period of time, the road south was blocked. There are two roads. One is the Kuranda Range Road, which is a winding, beautiful tourist road, highly unsuitable for any freight traffic whatsoever, and the other one is the Gillies Range Road, which is a winding mountain track—totally unsuitable. That means the whole of the Gulf Country and peninsula has no way to get any freight out, because the gulf is terribly shallow; we can't get big ships in there. We can't put a port there. If we go through Townsville, we're talking about a 2,000-kilometre round trip.

Chillagoe mineral province had 12,000 people a hundred years ago, and in the North West Minerals Province we had about 700 maybe. Now it's the other way around. We've got maybe 6,000, and Chillagoe's got nothing, because industrial mining requires huge freight loads. We simply can't open up the magnificent, giant Chillagoe mineral province. Three of the five biggest rivers in Australia are in that country behind Cairns, including the biggest river in Australia, the Mitchell River. It produces nothing at all, and it should be producing. (Time expired)