PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you very much Michelle and Ken, it’s great to be here with you.
Ken and Michelle are such powerful advocates for their communities, for your communities. Without them, the commitments of the infrastructure that we’ve made, wouldn’t be possible. Without them and without your support for them, we wouldn’t be in government and we’d have a Labor Government.
So I just want to thank you all, thank Ken and Michelle and thank you all for backing them and backing our team for Central Queensland, and our commitment to invest. We are putting so much in to our investment in Northern Australia. The Northern Australia Infrastructure fund, all the funding, the Roads funding, hospital car park – it’s a long list and you Ken and Michelle have been advocates for all of those elements, powerful advocates. But I want to just talk about water, let’s concentrate on water today.
Now I’ve warned people at different times that Barnaby Joyce and I are capable of boring almost anyone on water, except each other. Except each other. Because he’s the Water Minister now, I was the Water Minister nearly a decade ago and we both have a passionate interest in the way in which water can transform a community, an economy, transform people’s lives. It is truly the source of life.
You know we were out with Rob Lovegrove today, out in his place, we had a turn on his big centre pivot while we were there. He was saying that rainfall has always been variable in Australia, it always has been, we are as the Poet said the land of droughts and flooding rains. Students here would have learned all that poetry at school no doubt, and rainfall is becoming more variable. Northern Australia will get more rain but we’ll get it in bigger licks and there will be more dry patches in between.
So what does that mean? That means you need to have water storage in order to deliver the reliability of water that you need to ensure that Rob’s paddock is productive. Without water, can’t do anything with it, it’s of no use. With water, it’s productive, he makes a living, he employs people, he is driving our exports, he’s playing a part in the economy of the nation, of the community and of course, exporting Australia’s best to the world. All of that is made possible with water.
Now the Rookwood Weir for which Ken and Michelle have been such strong advocates, will have a yield of 86,000 mega litres a year. That is a lot of water. That is around one sixth of the volume of water every year, that is in Sydney Harbour. So that’s quite a lot of water. What that will do is create over 2,000 jobs. Michelle’s got it on her poster here: 2100 jobs and $1 billion every year. You see we talk about renewable industries and how important renewables are; there’s nothing more renewable than agriculture. If you’ve got the water, it’s producing the food and fibre that we need year after year after year, the jobs we need year after year after year. So it is vital.
We are committed to that, and we’ve put the money for the final business case. The project has been analysed and proposed for how many years? Over 30 years – well that’s right it’s been a long time coming, it’s about time we got on with it. We’ve committed to funding for half of it and we want the state to get on with it and stop showing a - let me say – a lack of enthusiasm. A lack of enthusiasm should not encourage anyone to support them, I’d say that.
What we’re doing, is backing you. We’re backing the industry and the investment that will transform Central Queensland and ensure that even though you’ve seen a slowdown, temporarily we trust, in the mining construction boom, you’ve got that great opportunity of agriculture to back it up. This has always been a strong and diverse economy. I was talking with the four Mayors earlier, with Ken and Michelle. The optimism and the plans they have for the communities here, the plans they have for Rockhampton, as we were talking about earlier, the great renovation I suppose, of street-scaping that you’re doing. I explored it last night actually, it was very impressive. All of that investment is going to strengthen and deepen the economy here. So we’re backing you. You’ve got great advocates and I thank them for their advocacy. Thank you for supporting them and believing in them.
We are committed to northern Australia. It is the frontier of opportunity for Australia. I don’t want to overdo it, talk too much about water, but I just make this very important observation. We have most of Australia’s water in Northern Australia. The vast bulk of it. The Fitzroy Basin is second only to the Murray Darling Basin. Yet there is so little infrastructure, so little water infrastructure, so little irrigation in the north. So little use of that water. We can do it, consistent with maintaining a strong environment, consistent with protecting the environment, we can use that water to create the jobs, and investment and opportunity that you need. In terms of the whole issue, I know there’s been a big issue with Adani. You know, what we’re committed to doing, and I say this particularly with reference to young people here, I know many of you will be concerned, as we all are, about environmental issues. We are committed to ensuring that the environment you take over, little Tamara takes over –
Will be as pristine, or more pristine, than it is today. We’re committed to that. Of course we are. Everything we’re doing is for our children and grandchildren. But we’ve got to be able to make decisions more quickly. We can’t keep on holding projects up for decades. We’ve got to be able to come to a “yes” or a “no”.
Now we’ve been cutting the red tape at the federal level, the states regrettably, particularly this state government, has not been doing that. That’s one of the challenges we face. But I can assure you, I will be reaching out to the other parties in the Parliament, the crossbenchers, Labor, not sure I’ll do very well with the Greens –
But I’ll be reaching out across the aisle. We have to change the way we examine projects in Australia whether it is a big resource project in Queensland or whether it is development in a city. We are taking too long to say “yay” or “nay”. Those long delays are, for all intents and purposes, denials. So it’s not shortcutting on the environment, it’s not short-changing the environment. We’ve got to do all that but we’ve got to come to a faster decision. That’s one of the big challenges that we’ll be taking up in this 45th Parliament.
But thank you again for being such warm and generous hosts. I always feel very welcome when I’m here. It’s been a good visit and I look forward to coming back. I’d love to come back with Lucy - Margaret in particular – because as you know, she’s a former Mayor. That’s why I’m always very respectful of Mayors by the way.
The highest office I held in local government was Lady Mayoress of Sydney. But I was the first man to be Lady Mayoress I was asked on the radio today, or I was told the Country Women’s Association is considering inviting men to honorary members, I should have called them I should have said well as a former Lady Mayoress, I should definitely be invited.
But I just want to say the way in which all of the Mayors are focused on - yes, the big resource infrastructure, yes the water infrastructure - but also focussed on improving and building and enhancing the amenity of the cities for which you’re responsible. It’s very inspiring. Our Cities Policy, we are determined that federal state and local government work more effectively together. Our Cities Policy is not just for Sydney and Melbourne - indeed, the first plan was actually Townsville and then Launceston – but we have to ensure that in every major town or city, anywhere there is a large amount of state and federal and local activity, we should be coordinating better. We haven’t done that in the past. So this is about partnership and we’d like to be achieving that right across the country and especially here in Central Queensland.
So thank you all very much, it’s wonderful to be in your company today.
Ends