Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

A very good man. I am not quite sure why he supports the ALP, although perhaps there is evidence of why in this chamber at the moment! He, like me, is very concerned about workers in the north-west and the north of Australia. He is very concerned about the emissions trading scheme. I do not think he has said too much publicly because he does not want to embarrass those who might be close to him who might be forced to take a position on it that does not support the interests of his members. But he is the sort of union leader who is interested in workers’ jobs. He is the sort of union leader who would be very concerned about the emissions trading scheme and the impact it will have on jobs in the Bowen Basin coalfields, the aluminium industry, the cement industry, the cattle industry and the dairy industry across Australia. Also, as I recall—and, if I am wrong, someone will no doubt tell me—Mr Bill Ludwig, the AWU union leader, is a supporter of uranium mining in Australia.

I am not indicating that I necessarily am or am not a supporter of uranium mining. I do know there is a hell of a lot of it. I declare an interest here. I have a couple of shares in penny dreadfuls, some of which are prospecting for uranium or think they have found it. I will just declare that as an interest. But there is a lot of uranium in Northern Australia, particularly Northern Queensland, and that is why these men across that part of Northern Australia have unanimously voted in favour of uranium mining in Queensland—as I say, mirroring support given by the Labor state member for Mount Isa. They have done that because they realise that uranium is used around the world. In Australia, uranium from three mines seems to be okay, but uranium from any more than three mines seems to be bad uranium—the policy of the Labor Party that everyone finds difficult to understand. But they also looked at emissions trading, carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and realised that one of the reasons the European Union is able to talk about meeting targets is because a substantial part of the power in the European Union comes from nuclear power. One wonders why people like the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, who are paranoid about carbon emissions, are not at least investigating—I am not saying supporting—the possibility of having uranium in the mix of energy providers for Australia.

But I digress. I am simply indicating that local governments in Australia take on a far wider role than the old road rates and rubbish activities of the past. In Australia local government is very well led at a national level by Councillor Paul Bell—a Queenslander, I am proud to say. He hails from the mining city of Emerald in Central Queensland. I know he would be having concerns about the emissions trading scheme, as anyone who lives in those areas would be. Certainly local government is well led and well resourced in Australia. There are a lot of very good CEOs of the various state local government associations, people like Greg Hallam in Queensland, who are very professional and do a great job in assisting local governments deliver their services.

I was at a local government conference in Hughenden in western Queensland just last week and I took the opportunity there to urge local governments to get together across the top of Australia to try to establish some sort of North Australian congress to fight for a better deal for North Australia. As I know you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Trood, about 45 per cent of Australia’s land mass is north of the Tropic of Capricorn, but only five per cent of Australia’s population lives in that area. In a federal parliament of over 200 members and senators, 142 federal members and 73 senators are in the south of Australia, below the Tropic of Capricorn, and across the north of Australia there are only eight federal members and three senators. I guess that is why, in a democracy, Northern Australia at times gets overlooked.

Northern Australia contributes 33.4 per cent of the national sea exports from Australia. Of Australia’s export earnings, Northern Australia contributes something like 30 per cent. We in the north—this is very relevant in these times of a drying continent—have anywhere between 47 and 66 per cent of the national river run-off. That all occurs in Northern Australia. The predictions on climate change are that the south of our continent will get drier and the north will get a little wetter or stay the same. We have that huge freshwater run-off across the north. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that in the future most of Australia’s food will be grown in Northern Australia because it has good, reliable water and it has a mosaic of good quality lands. In fact, I often proudly quote the Peanut Company of Australia, which originated in Kingaroy at the time when the name ‘Kingaroy’ was synonymous with peanuts. It is difficult to believe that in the not-too-distant future there will be very few, if any, peanuts grown in the Kingaroy district. They will all be grown in Katherine in the Northern Territory or in that corridor between Townsville and Mount Isa once good water storage comes into play.

In those parts of Northern Australia there are carefully considered programs for the harvesting and storage of some of that fresh water. We know about the Menzies government’s great initiative in the Ord irrigation scheme, a scheme which I am delighted to say the new Western Australian government has picked up and committed $200 million to extending. I give credit where credit is due. I am pleased to see the current government matching the Western Australian government’s $200 million to go on to stage 2 and perhaps stage 3 of the Ord River scheme. I was delighted in Darwin last week, in discussions with ministers in the Northern Territory government, to find that the Northern Territory government has dropped its disinterest in stage 2 of the Ord and is now coming to the table to be part of the discussions in looking at stage 3.

The Douglas Daley area in the Northern Territory is a good water supply source. There are certainly issues to be addressed, but that is an area that will support agriculture into the future. In my state of Queensland there is a lot more capacity in the Burdekin dam area. By increasing the size of the dam wall you could almost double the amount of water available, which will feed not only Australia but the world in many years to come. There are smaller projects too. There is the O’Connell Creek diversion off the Flinders River at Richmond. It is almost shovel-ready. It is the sort of project that I hope Mr Rudd would be seriously looking at as he wants to spend some of this money on nation building. I suspect it will not get a guernsey because it is probably too sensible.

The Queensland government need to make some decisions in relation to water allocation, which they seem quite incapable of doing. There is a good project that could start now and create a lot of jobs and more good quality agricultural land to feed Australian mouths and indeed the mouths of the increasingly hungry across the world. The Mt Beckford scheme is further up the Flinders River near Hughenden. It is a good project that could be put into operation with a bit of government leadership. There is also the Green Hills dam proposal on the Gilbert River just north of Georgetown up in the gulf. These are all projects that are almost shovel-ready. That seems to be the new buzz word these days. Those are some projects that the Labor government could very well and usefully have a look at if they could get their mates in the Queensland government to make some decisions.

We in the north really do need to get the people of southern Australia to understand just what a significant contribution the north makes to the national economy and to the future of people living in the south of Australia. That is why I have suggested that a Northern Australian parliament, sponsored by local governments across the north, might be one way of attracting the focus and the impetus to get some interest from southern-centric governments, both in Queensland and in Australia. That demonstrates the length and breadth and the width and depth of work that local governments do for our country these days. That is why the coalition continues to support financial assistance grants to local governments. That is why, although we are mystified as to why this bill is being introduced, we are supporting the bill currently before the chamber.