Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak to another document that I think is important enough to merit some debate, and that is the annual statement for 2017 on Our north, our future: white paper on developing northern Australia. Senator Canavan is in the chamber at the moment, and I'm sure he'll be pleased to know somebody is looking closely at the report that he's provided, although I have to say it's a pretty disappointing one. It's just six pages and it's really like a six-page press release ranting on about the government's magnificent achievements. I'm not going to be mindlessly partisan and suggest that the government haven't done anything, because they have done some things, but a lot of this, frankly, is sloganeering from the minister, and it's a pretty disappointing statement in terms of the content of it.

There are aspects that are specified with regard to better roads and rail, and that is certainly something that, as a Queenslander, I do support in general. The issue, of course, is where those rail lines go and where those roads go and who benefits. As we all know, rail lines are being proposed to open up new deposits of thermal coal in northern Queensland. That might benefit a small number of people—it might benefit a massive multinational like Glencore or Adani, maybe Gina Rinehart or Clive Palmer—but for the vast majority of people in northern Australia, in the long term it is not what is needed. When we have money that is available to invest in northern Australia, as is needed, then it is crucial that it is done effectively for the sustainable long-term good of those communities.

I was in Rockhampton and I saw Senator Canavan's office—there's a very nice big picture of him out the front there, I must say, in the street! I met with a number of people there, some of them very publicly, some of them not so publicly, some of them in areas of business, some of them environmental campaigners, some of them in community service organisations. All of them had ideas about areas where often quite small investments in their community could bring significant economic benefit and significant community benefit so they would not have to rely on the boom-bust cycle that has caused significant damage to some communities and towns in the regions. They were unanimously appalled that the Rockhampton City Council, for example, was spending ratepayers' money on an airstrip for Adani well outside the council area, as are the people of Townsville, whose council is doing the same thing.

The fact that there needs to be government support for projects and infrastructure and sustainable long-term, stable jobs that will build communities in a region is not controversial. Everybody supports that. The key issue is how that money is used. Unfortunately in Queensland, as in many other areas, there's a sad history of misguided megaprojects that are just wastes of public money at best and often deliberate pork barrels to benefit party donors or key constituencies at worst. We need to do much, much better than that.

There is one area in this report that I'll try to say something positive about, and that is the area of research and innovation. A lot of people don't realise that one of the biggest employers in Rockhampton is the university there, the Central Queensland University. It's been there a long time now and has developed some very significant and very valuable programs, not just for people in Rockhampton and Central Queensland; it has campuses in many other parts of the country—it has a campus in Mackay. It plays a very significant role in skilling people in the region to meet needs that are there, and that includes significant social service areas like aged care, like workers to meet the need that is already there and will be greater as the National Disability Insurance Scheme is rolled out. The investment needs to be put in there, and, in a way, it's positive to see a recognition that we need world-leading research and innovation in the north.

Further north, in Townsville, James Cook University is a world leader, particularly in marine park research, which is why they can tell us repeatedly with great expertise how much danger the Great Barrier Reef and the marine park surrounding it is in because of the refusal of this government to do anything other than continue to try and burn more and more coal. Unfortunately, if you look at some of the research centres that are being supported, you've got to question whether that's the best place to be putting it. That sort of detail in this report gives me great cause to think that the government's priorities are very much in the wrong place when it comes to Northern Queensland and northern Australia.

Question agreed to.