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

I take the interjection from the minister. The minister now says that it's a statutory review. But, if you have a look at his press release the day that he made this announcement late on a Friday afternoon, he was pretending it was a new thing. This is the fourth review that the NAIF will undergo in only three years. If that's not a sign that this organisation is in trouble, I don't know what is.

The truth is that Minister Canavan has direct oversight of a limited number of government funds in his role as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. I saw yesterday in this chamber—and I've seen it outside as well—that Minister Canavan likes to take credit for all sorts of things that are happening in northern Australia that are actually the responsibility of other ministers, people who oversee roads, water and energy infrastructure. They are the kinds of things that Minister Canavan wants to talk about—other people's achievements. That's because he doesn't want to talk about the things that are actually his own responsibility, particularly the NAIF.

Minister Canavan's inability to get the NAIF functioning properly is not just disappointing; it's holding back jobs and economic development in northern Australia. It's about time that Minister Canavan spent more time getting the NAIF running properly and actually spending money on projects, rather than going around the country lecturing people and jockeying for the Nationals' deputy leadership.

We all want to see the northern Australia agenda flourish. Labor has been and remains supportive, but at the moment the federal government is unable or unwilling to deliver on the vision. Northern Australia has huge potential, and we need to seize it. (Time expired)