JACQUIE MACKAY:
So first of all, what’s involved in your visit to Rockhampton this morning?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we’re making some very important water announcements with Barnaby Joyce the Deputy Prime Minister and of course Michelle Landry and Senator Matt Canavan. And the centrepiece of that is our commitment to funding half of the construction of the Rookwood Weir, which as you know is going to add $1 billion to agricultural output annually here from the Rockhampton area and of course several thousand jobs. So it’s a vital part of our commitment to northern Australia and our commitment to harnessing more of the water resources in Northern Australia.
You know most of the water in Australia is in the north, but very little of the water infrastructure is there.
JACQUIE MACKAY:
And, of course, some of the lead-ins to that if we see an increase in agricultural growth in the region would be something like an inland port for Central Queensland. There’s one planned for Yamala near Emerald, does the Federal Government have any perhaps announcements about potential funding support for an inland port like that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t have an announcement to make about that today, but I can tell you we are providing infrastructure funding right across Northern Australia and of course we have our Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, which has $5 billion committed to it, which is available for big projects such as the one you describe. It is an absolutely key priority of my government to ensure that Northern Australia, which is the frontier of our greatest opportunities, sees the investment, the enterprise, the support that it deserves.
JACQUIE MACKAY:
Speaking about investment in Northern Australia, the Minister for Main Roads in Queensland here Mark Bailey says that Queensland has lost out on about 40 per cent of its share of funding in the Northern Australia Roads Programme. He says that’s about the tune of $151 million short. What’s happening there? He says it’s been siphoned off to the Northern Territory.
PRIME MINISTER:
That is absolutely untrue; I’m not sure how he does those calculations. The funding for Queensland is, in terms of road infrastructure, is the highest on a per capita basis of any state. So there is very substantial investment here and of course it’s not just from the Australian Government. I mean one of the big pillars of our economic plan, as you know, is expanding export markets.
You know Queensland benefits massively from the China Australia Free Trade Agreement for example. It’s lowered tariffs going in to China for many of our agricultural exports and of course is increasing Chinese tourism and so forth. But if you look at the deal we recently signed with Singapore, that’s going to see $2.25 billion in North Queensland - around half of that is going close to where I am now in Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton, the balance being in Townsville. That’s investment from Singapore in to Australian defence facilitates that Singaporean troops also use when they’re training here. But that’s going to provide jobs and opportunities for local contractors and employment which again is an example of the way in which we’re focused on Northern Australia to make sure that we get the investment and the opportunities that this part of Australia needs. There is so much potential here that has been left untapped for too long.
JACQUIE MACKAY:
Getting back to Mark Bailey’s claims though, he has a whole list of the Northern Australia road projects that he says will now be unfunded because of money being allocated elsewhere. Are you absolutely sure that Mark Bailey’s figures are wrong? He’s saying that in the 2016/17 budget that your government allocated $375 million in funding for Queensland and based on that they had put forward 26 projects. He’s saying that now it looks like there’s only $223 million in total funding for the state.
PRIME MINISTER:
Let me be quite clear. Queensland is going to receive almost 40 per cent of the funding allocated, which is more than any other state or territory under the Northern Australia Roads Programme. And that’s on top of the record infrastructure funding that we’ve allocated to Queensland for projects like the Bruce Highway, the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing, Pacific Highway Upgrades.
We are getting on with the job of delivering the infrastructure that Queensland needs and it’s – you know there is nothing more tedious than state and federal politicians criticising each other, so I say this with reluctance; They’ve got an election coming up and they are constantly trying to distract from their own inaction, their own inability to get things done and try to blame others. Now you know, you look right here in Rockhampton, not very far from where I’m sitting right now is the site for the Rookwood Weir, why won’t the state government get on with that? They are dragging their feet on that. They are starting to um and ah about whether they want to do it, it’s a huge opportunity for this region, $1 billion of additional agricultural output, thousands of jobs, let’s get on with it. The money is there, we’ve got the $130 million ready to go.
JACQUIE MACKAY:
They’re putting the business case together at the moment, I believe. You did mention the issue of elections and the Federal Election saw both the members for Flynn and Capricornia face a very close challenge by two largely unknown Labor candidates. What lessons have been learned from that about the needs of the people of Capricornia and Flynn?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what we are committed to do is continuing to deliver for the people of Northern Australia and I think the re-election of our candidates, Ken O’Dowd and Michelle Landry demonstrates that the voters in their seats recognise that my Government is getting on with the job of delivering. We’re governing, we’re leading, we’re delivering. We’re not being distracted, certainly not by state politicians who don’t want people to look at their own failings.
JACQUIE MACKAY:
And just before I let you go, I know that you have many, many pressing issues this morning; a group of pensioners in Central Queensland have rung in this morning to ask why they are being disadvantaged, that people over the age of 70, they feel that governments policy on savings and assets is disadvantaging them - a generation of people that had to work hard and save hard and now at the end of their life they feel like they’re losing that.
PRIME MINISTER:
They’ve laid the foundations for us, for our children and our grandchildren and that’s why every element of our policy is supporting them. You know, we made some changes to superannuation recently in order to make the superannuation system more sustainable, to make it fairer. The percentage of Australians who were financially worse off as a result of those changes, or could be financially worse off, was about four per cent. And in terms of retirees, only people with superannuation retirement accounts in excess of $1.6 million – of course that’s very few people – the government understands very keenly the obligations we owe to older Australians. We fulfil them, we honour them and respect them and we certainly take their concerns in to account very, very carefully whenever they’re raised.
JACQUIE MACKAY:
All the best on your trip here in Rockhampton today. Thank you for your call today Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks very much.
Ends