Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Under the terms of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which this parliament approved last year, loans can be provided to projects but equity cannot, Senator Hanson. The proposal before the NAIF that was, as I said, applied for by the Queensland government and that was encouraged by the Queensland government is for a loan to help open up this investment.

Now, we can reasonably disagree about how this should happen, but I just want to see the jobs happen. I just want to see this opportunity come to North Queenslanders. Now that we're so close to making this happen, it has been threatened and put at risk by the actions of the Queensland Labor Party. The Premier of Queensland has admitted that she has a conflict with the creation of jobs in North Queensland. I would suggest to the Queensland people that there is one easy way to remove that conflict of interest and that is to remove the Queensland Premier! If we remove the Queensland Premier, the conflict of interest against jobs is gone and we can get on with it, create these jobs and create economic opportunity in North Queensland. (Time expired)