Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The senator is also right to point out the other advantages that the north has. Apart from the measures I have already mentioned, the government is focused on taking advantage of these areas, particularly in areas like education and tourism in our north. They are already strong industries in our north and in many parts of our country but they are things we can build on, too. That is why we are investing $15.3 million in tropical health and medical research initiatives across the north as part of our white-paper plan and $75 million in establishing a new, industry led cooperative research centre to develop Northern Australia. Of course, on Monday the government announced $13.6 million through the Northern Australia tourism initiative, which will deploy a team of experts across our north to provide one-on-one business advice, particularly to tourism businesses. Tourism is going to be a particularly important industry now that our dollar is lower.