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

I might stand corrected: it might be 40 metres of dumped silt. This silt has been dumped over time and this will continue. Get your facts correct: when you talk about one million tonnes, spread that out over 100 kilometres, because that is where it will be spread, and then ask how that would affect an area that already has 40 metres of silt.

Coming back to the motion, I wrote a history book which, thanks to the people of Australia, has been a best seller—we have sold nearly 20,000 copies. You do a lot of research when you write a book. The publishers, Murdoch Books, insisted that I put down what I feel should happen in our country. The first thought that came to my mind as a historian was the Murray-Darling, because drought-proofing nearly a tenth of the surface area of this country is truly the greatest accomplishment of this nation. We have turned two sleepy, empty rivers into two great canals carrying water across some of the driest parts of the world—namely, the Murrumbidgee River and the Murray River, both of which flow east-west. Also, around one-tenth of Australia's peak-load power comes from the mighty hydro-generators.

Let us look at what this parliament is doing today, which I think is excellent. We live in some of the most restrictive societies on earth. In particular, there is no question that New South Wales and Queensland are not far behind California in the international litigation register. The Queensland prison population doubles every seven or eight years. The state's economy is collapsing while trying to look after the people we throw in jail. I recently read that in California there are more people in prison than in primary school. This is the price of a restrictive society. We praise the government for removing some restrictions.

I repeat that the Murray-Darling is the greatest accomplishment of the Australian people. The Murray-Darling's mighty system feeds more than 20 million people. This system was created by the people of Australia from nothing. You could not irrigate because there was no security of water supply until the Snowy Mountains scheme was built and only then could you start producing food from this wonderful food bowl. The terrible part is that everyone in this parliament in the last 15 years will be condemned in the history books—and I have written one. Every person who has been in here will be condemned because they have closed down 30 per cent of that great achievement of the Australian people. You on both sides of the parliament voted unanimously to shut it down. It was only the righteous anger of the ordinary Australian people and some great Australians—and I name Alan Jones and John Laws, who have not always been flattering about me, but I praise them wholesomely on this—who rose up against this place, but you still proceeded to shut down 30 per cent. You wiped 30 per cent out of the greatest achievement of the Australian people. I wrote in my book, in the section entitled 'Walking with Giants', that these were the men who built the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme—men from the Baltic states, Finland and all over Europe who came to build this mighty scheme. The Australians who worked on it were men like Les Thiess, who eventually edged out all the foreign contractors and built the vast bulk of the Snowy project. Thirty per cent of this great achievement was snatched out of existence by this parliament to its disgrace. The history books will not be kind to those who served in this parliament.

But today we are talking about the removal of restrictions, and I praise the government fulsomely for it. I would like to say to the minister that I disagree violently with the previous speaker, who is my worthy colleague, and we agree on many things but not on this. He said that the government was acting without expert advice, but you can get that advice from the Parliamentary Library. That advice says that if you introduce ethanol it will increase CO2. There are 23 reports in the American Congressional Library and every single one of them indicates a 28 per cent reduction, and a number of them deal with sugar. We are at 72 per cent. So, I think the expert advice here is a heap of cow's manure! Alternatively, every other report in the rest of the world is wrong. Every single country in Europe is signed up to 15 per cent ethanol; China is on 15 per cent ethanol; India has announced it is moving to 15 per cent ethanol; all of the Americas are on ethanol. Every country on earth is doing it, except Australia. I would not listen too carefully to the expert advice.

People live in the bush because they love the bush. They are not going to be the people who destroy it, and if you give them a little bit of water and a little bit of land that they can farm—and a level playing field, which they do not currently have—then they will look after the bush for you. Europeans—the French and the Germans, for example—subsidise their farmers to keep them there, because otherwise there will be no-one to look after the land. The greenies have destroyed us commercially in North Queensland—just go and look at their handiwork. It does not go back to pristine Australian wilderness; it becomes overrun with introduced weed species. A very good friend of mine, Daniel Messina, told me: 'You’ve got to come out and look at this. There's 150 acres of cleared land, and the entire surface area is covered by giant sensitive weed and Singapore daisy.' I could not believe it. Unfortunately, aggressive weeds take over when you remove farmers from the land. (Time expired)

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