Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Senate Select Committee on the effectiveness of the Australian Government's Northern Australia agenda. This coalition government is filled with doers, especially in relation to northern Australia, and it's just unfortunate that I have only five minutes to highlight the huge strides being made in our great north. I think the most important element, though, is the structural changes that we are making to those things that have been holding northern Australia back—two things in particular. One is access to capital and the second is the complete market failure for insurance.

On insurance, we have acted on this market failure in northern Australia by announcing a reinsurance pool of $10 billion. Warren Entsch, as the member for Leichhardt, has been working hard on this for the last 10 years, and now he, George Christensen, Phillip Thompson and I have leaned in. This terrific announcement has made an unimaginable difference to businesses that couldn't get insurance; to retirees and owners of strata title units who couldn't get insurance; and, of course, to families, for whom the cost of insurance has become so eye-wateringly crippling that they have been either uninsured or underinsured. Some put the estimates on the reductions of insurance premiums at 50 per cent, which is a huge result on the back of this advocacy by our northern members. Again, this is in stark contrast to the Queensland Labor government, which continues to charge Northern Queensland residents predatory rates of stamp duty on their ever-increasing premiums. They're now having a windfall gain estimated at some $60 million a year being gouged out of the North Queensland economy.

On water, we have been working hard on establishing feasibility studies and preparing water projects. For the Big Rocks Weir near Charters Towers there is $30 million in federal funding, but we are still waiting for the state government to finalise their decision to get the project started. There will be 200 jobs in construction and ongoing agriculture on 5,000 hectares of high-value land. Work has begun on Rookwood Weir near Rockhampton thanks to $176 million in federal funding. Urannah Dam work is progressing north-west of Mackay. This is a terrific project, and it will require continued support to get it to construction stage, along with dams at Hughenden, the Richmond irrigation scheme and, of course, the Hells Gate Dam. We've also funded a study into a water project on the Cloncurry River. There is the Lakeland project on the Tablelands and, of course, the Mareeba-Dimbulah irrigation project, just to name a few.

Last week I was fortunate enough to be at Kidston for the sod turning on the project there, which has more than $650 million in federal funding. This includes the largest loan to date from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, at $610 million. The coalition has restructured the NAIF's lending criteria to allow smaller projects that will create jobs and boost regional economies in the north. In Queensland the NAIF has supported projects with a total value of around $1 billion, supporting around 3,500 jobs and returning an estimated economic benefit of more than $2.3 billion. The NAIF has now reached contractual close on $989 million in transactions in Queensland alone. This is a critical point of economic enablement where design and construction activities commence and job creation starts. Some of those opposite like to throw stones at the NAIF from their cushy inner-city offices, but this is not just an insult to the coalition; it is an insult to the hardworking NAIF staff who are based in the regions and making a real difference, despite the numerous roadblocks to development put in place by the Queensland Labor government.

There is so much more that is being done to increase people's ability to live and work in North Queensland and northern Australia: the increase of the Medicare rebate; regional connectivity, with the investment of more than $6 million in the latest round of regional connectivity programs to improve internet access for people in northern Australia; resources; the expansion of the geosciences program; and major transport corridors of growth. Our record in northern Australia is plain to see and is a result of action from this government.