Fraser Anning (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. I rise to speak strongly in support of the Regional Investment Corporation Bill 2017. This bill will establish a Regional Investment Corporation to be the single delivery agency for the Commonwealth's Farm Business Concessional Loans Scheme and the National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility. A major part of these loans is about managing drought. Successive governments have failed in their duty to drought-proof Australia. In my own state of Queensland, every year millions of litres of fresh water are allowed to flow to the sea which could easily have been used to water hundreds of thousands of acres of parched inland areas. Simply capturing water that is currently wasted by being allowed to flow out to sea could be used to drought-proof many hundreds of sheep and cattle properties, as could lowering power costs through hydroelectric schemes and opening up central barren land and cultivating it, in the process creating thousands of jobs. The economic benefits to Australia of the nation-building Bradfield Scheme, for example, would be enjoyed by many generations to come. The Romans 2,300 years ago, for instance, were moving water to irrigate their land, but we haven't done a very good job of irrigating ours.

Since 2013 and 2014, the Commonwealth has been offering concessional loans under the government's Farm Business Concessional Loans program to farm businesses to help them through difficult times and to encourage infrastructure and economic development. To date, over $680 million in loans has been approved to 1,270 farm businesses. Until now, these concessional loans were delivered through the states. However, this not only is ineffective but also results in a lack of consistency in loan delivery, as individual state government policies reflect their own agendas. More importantly, the state governments are currently pocketing fees of between 2.5 per cent and eight per cent, which is money that would otherwise have been provided to the farm businesses. There are expensive administration costs involved in having a state-administered fund, and having to undertake separate negotiations with each state makes the operation of the fund protracted and cumbersome.

By replacing this process with the Commonwealth Regional Investment Corporation, the sticky-fingered Labor states will be removed from involvement and the Commonwealth will be able to allocate its own money to farmers in need, rather than capital city bureaucrats. In addition, the program will have broader powers compared with the bodies administered by the states, which currently handle the funds, because the Commonwealth has broader constitutional powers, including trade and commerce and external affairs.

Finally, the corporation will also administer the government's National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility. The corporation's administration of the loan facility will provide further incentive for states and territories to fast-track the construction of dams and priority water infrastructure projects. This is particularly important in my state of Queensland, in which successive Labor state governments have appeared to be allergic to dam building. Billions that should have been earmarked for dam-building projects, including raising the wall of the Burdekin dam, building Hells Gates dam, building the Rookwood Weir and building the Wolffdene dam, has instead been frittered away on useless Tugun desalination plant and the South-East Queensland Water Grid water shell game—billions of dollars spent that added not one drop of additional water for irrigation and domestic use.

Thanks to the RIC bill, $2 billion worth of concessional loans have been made available for states and territories to deliver much-needed water infrastructure. Hopefully, this will entice even the Queensland government to stop constructing random tram lines on the Gold Coast and unnecessary tunnels under the Brisbane River and finally build the additional water storage Queensland needs.