Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I want to use my first opportunity in the new parliament to do something that my colleagues will find very strange coming from me, as I am generally a big hater. I want to congratulate the new government on one thing—that is, the decision by the new government to continue with the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce that was set up by the previous government. Our colleague Senator Bill Heffernan was the chairman. Unfortunately, although expectedly, the new minister has removed what she called the ‘political’ appointees to that task force, but she has determined to keep that task force going. I think that can only be good for Australia as a whole, and particularly for Northern Australia.

In speaking tonight, I want to pay tribute to all of the members of the northern land and water task force, but particularly to those members who will no longer be serving on it. They are Senator Heffernan; Mr Warren Entsch, formerly the member for Leichhardt; Mr Barry Haase, the Liberal MP for Kalgoorlie, which is the biggest seat in the Commonwealth; and Senator Ron Boswell, who is also from this chamber—four parliamentarians who made a very significant contribution to the northern land and water task force.

I have to say that, along with Senator Heffernan’s other very considerable talents, he had the talent for getting some very significant people—non-parliamentarians—to join that committee. He really set that task force off. These people are expert in their fields. They are people who have made a real contribution and continue to make a significant contribution to Australia. I will not name these people because the new minister has very sensibly invited them to continue working on that task force. As I have indicated to the other members of the task force, I certainly hope that they will accept the minister’s invitation so that the task force will continue to do the work it so ably started.

For those who are not aware of exactly what the northern land and water task force did, can I say that it was an initiative of the Howard government to look at where Australia will be in not three years, not five years, not 10 years, not 30 years, but 50 years down the track. The science on climate change suggests to us that, as the decades roll forward, the south of our continent will become drier and the north of our continent will become wetter.

There have been opportunities for pioneers to open up the north and to provide a food bowl for our country and for Asia, in the way that the Murray-Darling Basin was opened up and pioneered perhaps 100, 150, even 200 years ago. The northern land and water task force was looking at those distant goals for Australia. The task force did quite a lot of work in the 12 months or so that it operated under the chairmanship of Senator Heffernan. We met in all parts across the north. We looked at a lot of things. We heard a lot of evidence from people who have very firm views on what Australia should do in the future.

Whilst at times we thought the work that we were doing was quite revolutionary and far-sighted, we did see in the CSIRO library in Darwin reports from, as I recall, the early 1900s that were looking at the same sorts of things. But the issue has become more urgent now because, if we run out of water in the south, we will as a nation need to feed ourselves and feed our neighbours who are less fortunate than us. The idea was to look very seriously at sustainable use of productive land with available water across the north of Australia. It seems that the south of the continent will become much drier, and this will mean that some of those very good agricultural lands in the south of Australia will not be as productive as they have been in the past.

There is already a movement of young people, or young pioneers, who are looking at the north. We inspected quite a number of new farms that had been opened up by entrepreneurial young people, a young man and his wife, who have moved into what some would say was fairly virgin country. They have set up farms, and the ones we saw are, thankfully, doing very well. As I said to them, I hope they make squillions of dollars out of it. That sort of action is already happening. The task force looked at lands in the north-west of Western Australia, across the Kimberley and into the Daly River area. This is a particularly fertile area and holds great promise, with a bit of government initiative and a bit of government common-sense; but this seems to be a little lacking just at the moment—and I am talking about the state government. We also looked at issues in the north of Queensland. Where there is land, there are opportunities for water containment that could be used for irrigation.

Underlying everything that the task force did was the idea that any future plans had to be sustainable. It was not a matter of going out and building dams willy-nilly; it involved looking at various lands, the quality of their soils, what they could grow and how there could be sustainable farming operations. We looked at how the north could, with what appears will be a more adequate supply of water in the decades ahead, be used to feed Australia and, perhaps even more importantly, the rest of the world. We are conscious of the way in which China is expanding, a way that is perhaps not so sustainable. There is a huge population in that part of the world and, in the not too distant future, they may not be able to feed themselves, and Australia will become a food bowl not just for our continent but also for South-East Asia.

I am particularly pleased that the previous government appointed this committee that was taking a long-term approach and view of where our nation would be heading in the decades ahead. Those involved did a very good job but I am pleased that the new government is going to continue with it. I understand the new government is going to, somehow, involve the committee, not so much in the Department of the Environment and Heritage where it was placed previously, but in the new Office of Northern Development. I certainly hope that it does not become another bureaucratic group staffed by public servants.

Certainly the task force that has operated to date has been well served by a very good and capable secretariat from the department of the environment. But I urge the Labor government not to diminish the work of that task force by making it just another bureaucratic organisation. It has worked effectively and I think it can do a lot for the future of Australia. As the opposition spokesman on Northern Australia, I want to offer the new government my support in ensuring that that particular task force continues to operate in a way that will help Australia in the years ahead. (Time expired)