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

I rise tonight to pay tribute to two Australian pioneers in Blair and Josie Angus. Blair and Josie Angus are graziers who run a family business in North Queensland. They graze right across North Queensland and sell to 14 different countries with their Signature Beef brand. I was fortunate enough to visit one of their properties a few weeks ago, Sondella station, where they are building the first meatworks to be built in Queensland for 20 years. It was an extremely exciting day to join 50 or so other proud North Queenslanders, many of them graziers themselves, to inspect the new meatworks at this once-in-a-generation opening. The meatworks looked fantastic—they always do when there are no cattle in them. It's a few weeks away from being opened, but it is going to be a world-class facility.

Blair and Josie Angus were already leaders in the beef industry. Blair Angus had headed up Beef Australia, which runs the world's best Beef Week expo in Rockhampton. He did that for two terms. He and his wife, Josie, have been innovative in the beef sector and developing new products under their own brand, Signature Beef. Blair and Josie Angus will now go down in history as heroes of the Australian grazing industry, alongside those storied names of John Macarthur, Sidney Kidman and dare I say the Brockman family over there in the west, Mr President—congratulations on your elevation too! And now there are Blair and Josie Angus from North Queensland.

This facility is a once-in-a-generation investment. It is a $37 million project, and I am proud to have played a small role, as part of this Liberal-National government that has prioritised the development of our nation. This government established the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which is there to help bring on new investments, especially in northern Australia, as this project is. A few years ago, Blair and Josie Angus approached the NAIF and approached me, as the then responsible minister, with this idea, this project. It did take a few years. There were a few hiccups and hurdles along the way, a bit of pushing and prodding, I recognise, but I do recognise the hard work of the men and women of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to help bring this online with a $24 million loan. As Blair and Josie said the other week, this couldn't have happened without the NAIF. Blair and Josie Angus have been supported by another Australian bank, which I appreciate as well, but the NAIF did provide this cornerstone investment to help bring it on.

There have been 200 jobs created in construction. As I said, the facility is almost complete. Once it's operational, 70 to 80 people will have jobs in this facility just north of Moranbah in North Queensland. It's fantastic news for our region. The jobs are welcome. The extra economic activity beyond just agriculture and mining is especially welcome. This is a manufacturing facility, bringing a value-added industry to the region. Most importantly of all, the opportunities that this facility will provide for graziers, for family farmers, right across North Queensland are really welcome.

We are blessed in North Queensland to have a number of meatworks. I say this without any disrespect to the large multinational companies that run those networks—they play a role in our market; they offer a good opportunity for many graziers—but it is important, I think, that there is an opportunity for those graziers that want to market their own products and have a supply chain solution from farm to plate to have that opportunity to run their own business and stand behind their own product. They don't get that opportunity through the large multinational owned meatworks. If they send a beast to those meatworks, what comes out the other end is not a product that they own, not a product that they can sell. It goes off, of course, to JBS or Teys as their product.

Blair and Josie Angus have been doing this themselves, but they've had to send their cattle all the way from North Queensland to Casino to make these so-called service kills.

There's nothing wrong with Casino, Senator Davey, but it is a long way from North Queensland, and that's a fair cost for anybody wanting to do that. Now there will be a facility here in North Queensland that will offer processing not just for the Angus family but for other families across North Queensland to develop their own brands and sell the great Australian beef we enjoy right around the world. This is a pioneering project that will open up North Queensland. I pay tribute to the Angus family and everyone else involved in bringing on this wonderful project for North Queensland.