Speech to North Queensland Economic Development Conference

_{03 October, 2008}

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Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen.  Thanks very much for inviting me to this very, very important conference and I am delighted to see so many significant people here.  Yesterday I met and ran into a few Mayors, Paul Woodhouse, John Wharton, John Molony, Col Meng, Les Tyrell, of course, a team of Townsville City Councillors and perhaps other Mayors that I haven’t yet seen.  It is always good, of course to see Craig Wallace at these sort of functions and conferences and I am delighted to be able to follow Craig today and acknowledge his long term residence of the north and how proud he is to be a North Queenslander.

Can I also thank IGA, JCU, Ergon Energy and Aus Minerals for their support for this conference and congratulate Les Tyrell and his Council for yet again giving us the opportunity of coming together.  And I also thank all of those Councils who did contribute to that research data that Les released yesterday.

Ladies and Gentlemen, since I was elected to the Senate 18 years ago after spending 11 years in Local Government, I have had a very great passion for and commitment to Northern Australia.  Since I was elected I’ve published a newsletter with this sort of masthead you see on the screen which, as you can see,  identifies that Northern Australia which has less than 6 % of Australia’s population, produces more than 30% of its export earnings.  And as Federal Opposition Spokesman for Northern Australia and as Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the North, this whole conference theme of development of Northern Australia is in fact my job.  So that’s what this conference is about and why I am delighted to be with you.

As Les mentioned kindly yesterday, when I was Minister for Regional Services we ran a series of conferences called the Northern Australian Forum.  And at those Forums we talked about things like the Alice to Darwin railway, which was eventually completed by the Commonwealth Government.  We talked about having a serious look at land and water availability in the north and of course that came to fruition with the Task Force let by Bill Heffernan of which I was a member - and which the current Government promised to continue but after 10 months in office has only just last week announced the personnel on that continuing Task Force.

We talked about at the Forums getting money into small communities in Regional Australia and so developed the Regional Solutions and Regional Partnerships which poured millions of dollars into country towns and remote communities, a program which I regret to say the current Government has axed.

We also talked about better banking facilities in country areas and hence we developed our Regional Transaction Centres Program.  We talked about committing money direct from the Federal Government to roads and of course that’s why we were delighted then to announce the Roads to Recovery Program.  That is the most popular program ever seen by Local Government.

We talked about getting rural kids into health schools so that they could go back as doctors and dentists and try and address in a long term way the shortage of health facilities and that’s of course why the former Federal Government put money into the medical school at JCU both here and the dental school in Cairns which has just come to fruition.
And over the years we spent a lot of money on Northern Australia, Northern Queensland in particular.  Just taking Townsville as a example is the money gone into what is a State responsibility, the Ring Road, Commonwealth money into the Port Access Road, the Strand and Kissing Point, JCU, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and MTSRF, the Marine and Tropical Research Facility, AIMS, the Forestry Institute at Cairns, Medical and Dental Schools which I’ve mentioned the $400 million sugar package, support for Suns Metal, Financial Assistance Grants to Local Governments, Regional Partnerships, the NRM Bodies which got a lot of money in the north of which the current Government has slashed by some 40%.  We also made a commitment to the Outback Highway from Townsville across the centre to Perth.

So as far as the Commonwealth is concerned a lot of money has been put into Northern Australia.  That’s why I like others take some issue with the AEC Report.  I don’t have the facilities to check whether North Queensland’s been duded by $2 billion.  What I do object to is the comment in the Report that said “The majority of the net loss is with the Commonwealth Government , which is estimated to have spent 29% less in Greater North Queensland than it earned from the region.”  Well that’s just rubbish.  Perhaps the authors of that Report don’t understand that the millions of dollars, the billions of dollars that the Commonwealth gives to Queensland for schools, hospitals, roads and the like go to the Queensland Government to spend on their proprieties.  And if they haven’t spent it in the north then there’s not much the Commonwealth can do about that.

Queensland has done very well out of the GST receiving many billions of dollars more than other states and at an earlier period, and we would hope that that would have been spent in the north but according to AEC apparently it hasn’t.

Ladies and Gentlemen but look that’s all in the past and I don’t want to dwell on that.  I want to look at the challenges for the future.  And by now at this conference, I know you’ve had one day of very intense work, a lot of very professional presentations and many exciting concepts.  There are opportunities for the north and I’d like to divide them into a couple of headings.

First of all food supply and food security.
As you all know, if you read the papers or listen to the news, the Murray-Darling system is dying through lack of water and through climate change.  At the same time we’re told by the experts that Northern Australia will become wetter and will be in a better position to provide water.  But what’s holding the north back at the present time?
It is lack of infrastructure to support further agricultural pursuits, roads, rails, ports and most importantly it is access to water which I know John Wharton spoke about yesterday and that the Minister just briefly mentioned this morning.  But it is that access to water.  We also have as an impediment to further agricultural development in the north the Tree Clearing Legislation, the stupid if I might say Wild Rivers Legislation, unworkable Native Title Systems and senseless environmental rulings that care more about getting Green preferences in George Street than they care about developing the north of Australia.  Australia in the north can be and must be, has a duty to be, not only the food bowl for Australia in the future as the Murray-Darling dies, but also of Asia.

Ladies and Gentlemen as I mentioned these are issues of land management which regrettably I might say are the sole responsibility of State Governments.  Water is not the problem.  Lack of access to water is the problem and for decades now State Governments have strategies, they’ve done assessments, they’ve done plans, they’ve held meetings, they’ve gone to conferences, they’ve spoken to you at conferences like this, but nothing happens.  I happen to know, not only have the Richmond Shire done a lot of very sound work on the sustainability of water on the O’Connell Diversion but so have the Hughenden Shire on the Mount Beckford Dam proposal, so has the Etheridge Shire on the dam on the Gilbert River.  And so have the Cloncurry Shire in relation to water use out there but nothing seems to happen.  We continue having strategies and plans but nothing occurs.  We all know the water in the Burdekin is valuable and can feed many parts of Australia with agricultural activities, it can also help in mining operations, it can also help in Townsville.  We know the wall has to be raised but after 10 years the State Government is thankfully still thinking about it.  And we know that there is availability of Hydro Electricity from those areas.

Look Ladies and Gentlemen, we know in the north that we can grow agricultural products, we can feed the world almost and I’m sure John Wharton yesterday told you about the Tritton family’s operations at Silver Hills outside Richmond.  They can grow anything.  All they need is access to water, a bit of infrastructure and transport and some licences and they can do anything.

I went recently to a property up in the north west, and it is regrettable in today’s day and age that I’ve been asked by the owners not to mention or identify the name of the property for fear that bureaucrats and radical greenies will come and interfere with a massive operation they have there, sustainably harvesting water from the Leichhardt River, employing some 30 odd people, many of them young people and growing 250 ha of irrigated maize with the potential for any sorts of feed that you might want to eat.  I spoke to another land owner further north who has very ambitious plans to feed not only his own cattle but also the world but again because of Native Title, Wild Rivers rubbish and Tree Clearing Legislation nothing can happen in an area which could support many of the hungry people of the world.

Now I’m not for a moment suggesting we should do away with Native Title we need to get a Native Title Regime that actually benefits indigenous people and allows for development.  We need to have Tree Clearing Legislation but it needs to be sensible, not to curtail growth because in the end result this world needs food and it's places like Northern Australia that can supply that food.  So it can be done, but what we need to make it happen is action, not words and more strategies and assessments.

Ladies and Gentlemen the second opportunity for development across Northern Australia and in Northern Queensland as well, is in the mining and metal processing area.  We have unlimited potential.  Many of you will know that up the back of Townsville even a very significant Townsvillian, Sir Mick Curtain, a no nonsense get in and get things done guy, has found enormous reserves of iron ore.  He was told by Beattie and McGrady that there was no iron ore outside the north west of Australia over in Western Australia.  He has the potential to export 1 million tons per year but what’s happening?  He has no transport.  You know we did have a railway line up to Greenvale but with great foresight the State Government ripped it out.  And now we have this iron ore potential on our doorstep and very little opportunity to get it out.

I know that Mick is a very optimistic person.  I’m told there rumours that he’s already bought three locomotives for the day that he or someone else might build a line, but that potential is there. 

In the Cloncurry area eleven new mines are opening in the next three to five years, the town has doubled its population, there is a 14 hundred room accommodation development proceeding.  Further development however is constrained by water, lack of any real power and an inability to get the Government to expand the land base around Cloncurry so they can house people.  Industry wants to move there but can’t get in.  You’ve heard as well of the news of a huge coal seam gas reserve 100 kms east of Cloncurry, 300 kms long 50 kms wide, potential to give emissions free energy to the north west mineral province.

Elsewhere in Queensland the north west mineral province, huge phosphate reserves, huge operations already occurring at Black Star Mine, Cannington, Ernest Henry, Zinifex, phosphate starting up near Karumba, but what is holding up that development?  Again it’s lack of infrastructure.  A railway line between Townsville and Mount Isa that is barely capable of carrying a passenger train let alone carrying all the minerals and the cattle that could be using that line.  It needs strengthening and eventually duplication.  It needs more ports, it needs expansion of ports.  You’ve only got to fly down to Brisbane, look out the window on the left and see ships sitting out off Dalrymple Bay costing what you can only imagine is absolutely millions of dollars.  Why?  Because the port facilities are not there.  There’s no water in the north west where we need it for mining.  And the other thing holding up development of mining is fear of Emissions Trading System.  I’ll speak a little bit about that later.

But to get these sorts of developments - and they are there to be done, we do need people.  That’s the third part of the jigsaw.  But to get people, you need decent health care, you need good education facilities, you need amenities, you need transport, you need training.  Good heavens we’ve got the best training facility almost in the world I’d say with the North Queensland Technical College here in Townsville but it’s about to shut its doors because the current Federal Government has an ideological belief that it’s not appropriate.  You also need to get people into the north, not only Townsville but out in the remoter areas, affordable housing but you can’t even get land let alone talk about the houses.  So what we need to get agriculture and mining booming again is some State Government action, not strategies, not assessments, not conferences but action.

The Federal Government has a role too.  We need a decent communications system.  We must have broadband which is essential if you are going to compete in the world at the present time.  Unfortunately the previous government’s plan to bring wireless and satellite broadband to every part of Australia has been axed by the current Federal Government.  They now have a fibre to the node program which will be great if you live in the capital cities, it will be beaut in Townsville and Cairns and Mackay but if you want it out there where the wealth of Australia is made, well sorry, you’ll be in the 2 to 5% of Australians that aren’t going to be serviced by the new proposal.
And Ladies and Gentlemen I’m talking about new developments out in the more remote areas but what happens out in Richmond, in Mount Isa, in Moranbah, supports and strengthens and enhances  the growth of the capital cities, the major regional cities along the coast like Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and the major provincial towns as well.  And growth in the north generally will enhance the lifestyle facilities in those major regional cities and towns.  But to do that we also need more hospitals and I won’t waste any of your time by talking about the critical situation of Townsville Hospital, only to say that it’s the same for the people in Mackay, Cairns, Rockhampton and anywhere else you go.  It’s not repeated in Aramac because they closed the hospital there and it’s not repeated in Hughenden because they’ve just shut the operating theatre there.

But you need schools, you need affordable housing and you need opening up of crown land so that people can move  in. Other areas like tourism and defence will occur naturally if you have the right infrastructure.
But Ladies and Gentlemen the future as I say depends on action in areas where regrettably there has been none.  And it seems there is just an inability to make tough decisions.  Assessments are needed.  In many instances you know governments say well we haven’t got the money.  But governments don’t need to fund most of these things.  Dams can be funded privately or at least in public, private partnerships.  The railway to Mount Isa could be sold to get some real cash investment into it.   Power can be done by private enterprise, you don’t need Ergon doing it.  Ergon, as we discovered in a Senate Inquiry recently, pays more than 100% of their profits every year to the State Government in dividends.  How is that for good financial management? How’s that for giving Ergon an ability to reinvest in the capital works that need to be done.  It won’t happen because they’re paying more  in dividends than they make in profits to the State Government to fill up their coffers for the south east of Queensland.

Roads in instances can be privately funded, housing should all be privately funded and there is no reason why private enterprise can’t fund ports which would mean better ports, more efficient ports and ports that meet needs.
Ladies and Gentlemen what governments need to do is set clear and unambiguous rules that provide the parameters, the framework so that private enterprise can get in and do it.  Governments then need really, to get out of the way.
As a Federal Opposition we can try and influence development as much as possible but the decisions on land management, on most of the issues that are a problem, really have to be made by State Governments.

In water the Federal Government did put $20 million into that Land and Water Taskforce in the north.  We put money into the Ord and will put more.  We do have a role in environmental approval but the State needs to give licences, do land management arrangements.  They need to address Wild Rivers, they need to address Tree Clearing and Native Title.

Ladies and Gentlemen the Commonwealth has a role in transport and infrastructure but it doesn’t matter how much money the Commonwealth gives as we did give to the Bruce Highway which has been mentioned.  Four years ago in the budget over $200 million was provided for the Tully Flood Plain but you know who does the work?  You know who does the planning? The State Government.  The Federal Government money has been there for 4 years but the work has only just starting now.  And I leave you to make up your own mind on what happened.

Proposals like the O’Connell River Diversion can be privately funded as with the Mount Beckford Scheme, as with ports as I’ve mentioned and as with power. 

Ladies and Gentlemen I’m running out of time but I did just want to mention the Emissions Trading Scheme if I might because all of the work that you do at this conference can be of no avail if we have a poorly designed Emissions Trading System.  And for the Emissions Trading System to work, it’s going to cost a lot of money.  For example, we all talk about clean coal techniques, but to get clean coal affordable you will have to be charging $50 a ton of carbon emitted.  And at $50 a ton of carbon emitted, sorry folks your electricity bill, your own private electricity bill is going to go up three times.  There are metal processing operations in this town, and I won’t name them, who if we get in a badly designed Emissions Trading Scheme, will become unprofitable.  They will pick up stakes, move to China where they can do it much cheaper but less efficiently so there greenhouse gas emissions from China will be three times what they are emitting in Australia but we’ll lose the work.  We’ll be exporting jobs.  And for what purpose?  With Australia emitting less than 1.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, nothing we do in Australia will make any difference to the changing climate of the world unless the United States, China and India do something and until they do something it’s my belief that we shouldn’t be leading the way.

And briefly Ladies and Gentlemen can I just talk about uranium.  Malcolm Turnbull has said there are three requirements for nuclear power in Australia.  Bipartisan support, economic sustainability and community engagement.  At the moment uranium and nuclear power is not economically feasible.  But as the world progresses and we look closer and closer as a world community at greenhouse gas emissions we must look at the cleanest form of power generation which is uranium.

I was with the United Nations earlier this year and was told that China will be opening five new nuclear power plants this year.  And I was also told that nuclear power plants these days are almost and I quote the United Nations expert ‘terrorist free’.  Here in Northern Australia we have untapped and untold reserves of uranium.  We have within our grasp the ability to get clean power and plenty of it to every mining development, every agricultural development, any other development we might need in the north.  But governments are too frightened to even put it in the mix.  I’m not saying it should happen tomorrow but I’m saying that you can’t disregard it.  Regrettably the current Federal Government thinks uranium from three mines is great but uranium from four mines is bad.  Tell me the logic of that.
The State Government won’t look at it and for once I agree with Bill Ludwig and the Unions.  That is, that it is a stupid position and we must really seriously consider uranium.  We’ve also got to look at wind power which we can do in the north, solar, and we’re ideal for that in Townsville and out Mount Isa way.  We’ve got tidal power up on the north west coast of Western Australia that would just about power Australia and we are certainly looking at that and there are these clean coal techniques.

So not only do we have the bulk of Australia’s future water up this way, we have the raw materials and the sources of power to make the north the real power house and food bowl of the world.

Now Mr Chairman if I can just complete this and I’m just about finished, we really do have to, as a group, if we are to continue these conferences and make a difference, we’ve really got to  make sure that those with the power to do the things we know need to be done, actually do them.  And it is the State Government that has the say on water, on power, on people support. 

It’s not for want of influence up our way because of the fifteen State Electorates in North Queensland, ten of them are held by the Government in power and five of them are held by Ministers who make the decisions in George Street.  So we have the influence there, we just need those people with the influence to actually discharge their responsibility and use that influence and make sane decisions.

Ladies and Gentlemen in conclusion can I urge and plead with the State Government to fast track approvals and assessments or complete the assessments and fast track approvals and decisions in relation to water use in the north.  Can they get serious about base load power and seriously have a look at uranium, not for next year but for 10 or 20 years time.  And can the State Government work with private industry to develop the sort of infrastructure that private industry, superannuation funds are just pleading to be involved with but can’t get their foot in the front door.
So some decisions in these areas will realise the potential that the north has, and will bring to fruition that potential that we in this room all know that the north has and offers.

Thanks very much.

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