Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Don't come up with your hypocrisy. You were in government for 12 years and we did not get even a heap of concrete across a gutter-way. So don't come up with your hypocrisy.

The electorate of Kennedy can probably sustain a population of 70 million or 80 million people. The rivers in the Kennedy electorate have half of Australia's water run-off. Most of those are in the gulf, which is flat country—no rocks; absolutely fantastic farming country. I am not saying we would be able to use a million acres of the thousand million acres that are up there, no matter how many dams we built. I do not want to pretend what I cannot deliver.

Most certainly it is considered opinion that on the example of the Murray-Darling, with eight million megalitres, we can most certainly double or triple that figure in the gulf and peninsula. We can support a population of 60 million people because the Murray-Darling supports a population of 20 million people. I have always advocated an increase in population coming into this country. I see absolutely no problem. In fact, I think one of the preferred groups have very similar religious beliefs to the religious beliefs of this country. They have had democracy for 70 or 80 years; they have had rule of law for maybe 100 or 200 years. Whatever criterion you want to use for fitting in and feeling at home in this society is met, the fact that they have already proved themselves to be good citizens would be another element in that equation.

Similarly, the population of Queensland in the late 1890s was predominantly not European; it was predominantly Chinese. I would also have to say that the Chinese have proved exemplary citizens in North Queensland. It would be hard to name a family that was not related somewhere in the past or the present to people of Chinese descent.

We do not stand up here today to advocate a lowering of the boom; we are here advocating that the door is not open to anyone who wants to jump on a boat and call themselves an asylum seeker, when in actual fact they are self-smugglers. There may be very good reasons why they are self-smuggling. I am not denying that. There are a hell of a lot of people in the Punjab in India who could put up a very strong case indeed, in fact a stronger case, than half the people who are sneaking in now—and I use the words 'sneaking in'.

I voted against the Malaysian decision last time because I am not for handling them in Nauru or Malaysia or anywhere; I am for keeping them on the boat. They chose to get on the boat; that is their business. If a person chooses to go on a boat and can therefore automatically become an Australian citizen, which is the mechanism and machinery, then we have very serious problems indeed.

Debate interrupted.

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