Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to thank the minister for providing the Senate with an update on the government's implementation of the northern Australia white paper. It was originally intended, I think, for that to occur yesterday, but obviously, with the change to business, that has ended up happening today. This is my first time taking note on the northern Australia agenda as the shadow minister. I want to take this opportunity to put forward Labor's position on that agenda and some issues that we think need some further attention.

As a senator for Queensland, I'm all too aware of what a significant contribution the industries in our north make to our national economy. While I've previously spent a lot of time in North Queensland through my family connections, my role as a senator, and previously in the Queensland government, since my appointment earlier this year I've spent a lot more time travelling across all of northern Australia to gain a better understanding of how we can expand those industries and support northern communities. Over the last six months since the election, I've been in coalmines outside Moranbah, lead and zinc mines in Mount Isa and gas processing service hubs in Broome. I've stayed at the Larrakeyah Barracks in Darwin to understand more about our Defence Force's challenges in the north, and I've met shipbuilders and tourism operators in Cairns with Senator Green. I've met mango farmers, barramundi farmers and cattle farmers across the Northern Territory. In doing so I've seen the work that universities like Charles Darwin University, James Cook University and Central Queensland University are doing to skill up workers and develop critical research for the north. I've sat down with Indigenous health services in Wiluna and other communities in remote Western Australia, and I've been on country with the Indigenous rangers in Nhulunbuy and Cairns. In short, I've spent the last six months meeting with as many different people as I can to gain a better understanding of how the northern Australia agenda is actually faring.

It has been over four years since former Prime Minister Tony Abbott released the northern Australia white paper to great fanfare. Since then we've seen two new prime ministers and two ministers for northern Australia, and many questions have been raised about how effective the government's northern focus has been. As I made clear at last night's function to celebrate the northern Australia agenda, Labor is very supportive of efforts to economically and socially develop northern Australia, and we remain very supportive of the government's northern Australia agenda overall. But, as I have been travelling across northern Australia this year, the feedback I've received is that, while the government's northern Australia agenda remains vital, it has simply failed to meet expectations.

That's why, in July, Labor established a Senate select committee into the effectiveness of the northern Australia agenda. This cross-party committee, with representatives from Labor, the coalition, One Nation and the Greens, was formed to identify what's working well in the northern Australia agenda and what can be improved on. So far the committee has held four public hearings, in Townsville, Mount Isa, Darwin and Nhulunbuy, in East Arnhem Land, and there will be further hearings in the new year, including in Cape York and the Torres Strait, in my home state of Queensland. We've been hearing from businesses, state and local governments, unions, community organisations and industry leaders.

The disappointment from stakeholders that I've heard about during my time travelling across northern Australia has been reflected in the evidence given to the inquiry to date. Just to give a couple of examples—Mr Ian Kew from the Darwin Major Business Group, when asked about the government's northern Australia infrastructure program, said:

If we just muddle along like we have for the last four or five years, with a lot of fancy reports but not much real action, then that's not going to do much for the economy.

According to Central Queensland University's submission to the inquiry:

… while there is little doubt the Government's efforts … in Northern Australia to date have been focused on addressing real issues, there is little evidence that significant gains have been achieved in terms of enhanced economic opportunities or social dividends.

I only give two examples, in the interests of time, but anyone who cares to read the submissions to the inquiry or the evidence that we've taken in hearings to date will see that those sorts of attitudes are representative of the evidence being provided. People remain excited about this agenda but are, frankly, pretty disappointed with what has come of it four years down the track.

While there has been disappointment voiced within the hearings, we've also heard about the enormous potential that our north continues to have. Traditional industries like resources and agriculture remain ripe with opportunities to expand and value-add. The committee has also heard a lot of evidence about emerging industries, such as the space industry, tropical science and health, defence maintenance, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy projects, and what is required to build these industries in northern Australia. I think that is one issue that the government particularly needs to look at, as it prepares a refresh of this northern Australia agenda, to ensure that we are grabbing all industry opportunities—whether they be in traditional industries or emerging industries—to make sure that we insulate northern Australia from the kinds of booms and busts that we've seen in economies that remain largely dependent on commodity based industries like resources and agriculture. In my view, this chance to grow emerging industries is barely mentioned within the northern Australia white paper, and it is something that really needs attention in any refresh that the government is planning.

Investing in emerging industries, particularly in a pioneering landscape like northern Australia, is inherently risky business. Unfortunately, the federal government's brainchild to help facilitate these investments—the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility—has become its most infamous failure. Time and time again submissions to the inquiry have highlighted the northern Australia agenda's crowning failure: the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, or, as its critics in the north have dubbed it, the 'no actual infrastructure fund'.

Despite being announced over four years ago, the fund has, to this date, only released $44 million—less than one per cent of its $5 billion budget—and not one cent of that money has been spent in Queensland, the largest and most populated state across northern Australia. Instead, we've seen over $400,000 worth of bonuses handed out to senior executives within the NAIF and nearly $26.6 million spent on administrative costs. So what we can see so far is that nearly 40c in every dollar that is left in NAIF has been spent on running costs—from executive and staff salaries, to office space, to consultants, to advertising, to travel and to bonuses. That is just not an acceptable performance over four years of this agenda being up and running. Indeed, there has been more money spent on executive bonuses than on projects in my state of Queensland.

And, worse, we've now seen one of the loans actually fall over. We see repeatedly Minister Canavan in this chamber and outside crow about the number of projects and the amount of dollars that have been approved by the NAIF. But what he doesn't want to admit is that there are at least two loans, equating to close to half the value of the loans that the NAIF has already approved, that are now under a serious cloud. It was recently announced that a loan given to Pilbara Minerals Ltd would not proceed to financial close. Despite this, Minister Canavan has continued to claim it as a win in his media releases. I might also mention that in his northern Australia annual statement last year, Minister Canavan singled out the Pilbara Minerals Ltd project as a NAIF success story. What a difference a year makes!

Just last month we also saw reports of a second NAIF loan in doubt—this time, the loan to Genex Power's $700 million Kidston pumped-hydro project in North Queensland. The project is built on a $610 million loan from the NAIF—87 per cent of the project's value and almost half the loans approved by the NAIF overall. If the NAIF's Genex loan falls over, it will leave a massive hole in the $1.2 billion in loans so far approved by the NAIF.

The operation of the NAIF has now become such a worry for the minister that he has taken the extraordinary step of announcing yet another review into the NAIF, a facility he oversees.