Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A week ago my colleagues the member for Lyons and the member for Braddon welcomed the Prime Minister to Northern Tasmania where he announced a major government investment in Tasmania's irrigation schemes. This was wonderful news for my community, and these five schemes will become strategic enablers of our future prosperity. Often in politics we talk about short-termism but these are things that year on year, political cycle after political cycle, will be strategic enablers for our future prosperity. When it comes to farming, you need two key things. Principally, you need certainty when it comes to water and by any measure these schemes deliver that—95 per cent water certainty. That makes sure that farmers, who often invest in their farms only when times are good and just struggle through when times are bad, are going to have much more certainty in relation to their on-farm investments.

This investment also reinforces the government's commitment to infrastructure as a foundation for future growth. Whether it is the Midland Highway or the Hobart airport or converting marginal farmland into something more productive, these projects will help our community thrive and generate jobs. We are fortunate to be situated where we are in the Asian century. People often talk about the economic vitality of the North Atlantic, the European countries and America, through the forties and the fifties and the sixties and so on, but now they are saying that the engine room of global dynamism for the foreseeable future will be in Asia. Here we are, sitting aside the Pacific and the Indian oceans, able to leverage the benefits of growing middle classes from India to China. By some estimates, a middle-class of 500 million today in that region will triple to 1.7 billion people in the middle class between now and 2020. It is an extraordinary growth of people, and as they move into the middle class their demand for things—for clean, green, fresh produce—will certainly accelerate.

My view is that there is a tactical linkage between the irrigation schemes I have described and the free trade deals that trade minister Andrew Robb negotiated last year. The enhanced local agricultural production in northern Tasmania will feed into some of these growing markets, and it will be wonderful for my community in northern Tasmania. It is wonderful to see we are utilising our natural resources in a way that is environmentally sustainable, that supports our agricultural sector and that gives farmers the certainty they need to invest and create more jobs. I congratulate the Prime Minister and his leadership team for investing in these wonderful irrigation schemes.