Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What did you say? Where's the pig shooting? That's a very good interjection from Senator Pocock! We might put that. I think each games has the ability to add a couple of local events. I have a few places I'd suggest for the pigging! We could market western Queensland as well. But you distract me, Senator Pocock. We've got the sailing up in the Whitsundays and Townsville. That's a wonderful idea. Why would we not use the games as a vehicle to sell and market the Great Barrier Reef to the world? Hosting the sailing through the Whitsundays will be a wonderful opportunity to do that. Cairns will continue to host football as well as some indoor sports events. That will mean infrastructure upgrades throughout regional Queensland.

That brings me to my hometown of Rockhampton. After the push from a number of locals last year we've been successful in having the rowing moved to Rockhampton. It was an amazing result for my community and my region. We're often overlooked, but the Liberal National Party team—they're in Central Queensland—always fights for our region. I was fortunate enough to be joined by the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, and newly elected state MPs Donna Kirkland for Rockhampton, Nigel Hutton for Keppel and Glen Kelly out at Mirani. All of them got behind this vision. We have a wonderful rowing facility already in Rockhampton. It's often used by the Australian Olympic team to train. The state school championships are held there annually. We will now also have the ability to sell the Australian bush, with the beautiful gumtree-lined river there, the Fitzroy River. It's also connected to the reef as well, which is just 40 minutes away. So I'm very excited about that.

There's nothing like a crocodile to sell newspapers, is there? That's what I've discovered over the last few days. People love them. They just love crocodiles and they love hearing and talking about them. It's sort of strange to me—and we scratch our heads up there—when everyone's saying that somehow there'll be world records set because the crocodiles will be chasing the rowers, rah, rah, rah. Well, how is it that we can allow 700 of our children, school children, compete in the Fitzroy River every year but that apparently there's going to be a huge risk for Olympians? If there was a risk for Olympians, why would we as parents allow that? I should say that I've got skin in this game. My son rows on the Fitzroy River three or four times every week, normally, in training. It's perfectly safe. It has been used for a hundred years. In fact, no-one has ever been killed by a crocodile in Central Queensland. They do exist in different places, but they're well managed, and our river is very safe for human purposes. I'm sure we'll be very successful.

More recently we have heard about issues of streamflow in the Fitzroy. Again, a few of us are scratching our heads. There are people who don't want the rowing in Rocky, and I understand that, but there has to be a winner and a loser in these things. Now people are saying the river will flow and that that will cause interruptions to the event. First of all the river does have barrages, which are not tidal at all. It flows from the ocean and is contained. The streamflow from upstream doesn't really happen at this time of the year. That's why the locals don't understand this issue. We're a subtropical environment. Almost all of our rain—95 per cent—occurs in the summer months. In the winter months, as a recent hydrological study of the Fitzroy River concluded, the river slows to almost a zero flow. I've had a look at this in detail in the last couple of days, since the issue was raised, and the streamflow gauges that we have show a flow in winter, in July-August, when the Olympics will occur, at well below the world rowing association's threshold of 0.1 metres per second.

I should say that the world rowing association has been very flexible for LA. In LA, the rowing is occurring at a marine stadium that is impacted by tidal flows. In fact, the course will just be 1,500 metres—500 metres shorter than normal—to allow LA to host the rowing in the Long Beach area, where so many other events will be. In terms of the flows there, when the world rowing association went to do its feasibility study, it detected flows of 0.15 metres, which is 50 per cent higher than the allowed threshold, and yet it has still approved the holding of this event there. So there's obviously a degree of flexibility.

I think it's now time to just get behind this plan. I've had some conversations with colleagues on the other side. They seem happy and excited. I hope we can put aside the politics now and deliver this great event for all Australians. I remember as a young person that I was probably a little sceptical of the Sydney Olympics leading up to it—we all watched the Games and those sorts of things—but, geez, it was a wonderful event. It was so good in bringing our country together. It was done brilliantly. All credit to Sydney and the people who organised it. We all remember it. So now we've got the opportunity for the same thing for a new generation of Australians, especially those young Australians who compete at the highest level. It will be an amazing opportunity for them to compete on their home soil and hopefully win as many gold medals as possible for Australia, and we can all celebrate with them.