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

A thousand million dollars has been found in this budget for refugees, but we were not able to find $25 million for the economic development program put before the government by the Mayor of Hope Vale Aboriginal Shire Council and the mayors of Yarrabah, Palm Island, Woorabinda and Cherbourg. If there is generosity then generosity should start at home.

I speak with the authority of Percy Neal, the Yarrabah mayor and one of the architects of this economic development program, when I say that the program in his area requires an extension of the supermarket so that people can shop locally instead of having to drive a 50-kilometre round trip to Gordonvale or Cairns. It involves the building of a rock wall to provide safe anchorage so that tourist boats can pull in and we can get some dollars out of Cairns, the great tourism centre, which is only 20 or 30 minutes away by boat. It will, we hope, create a coffee club and a pharmacy in the little shopping centre that is to be built. An area of some hundred hectares of land will be put under cultivation for bananas, and another 200 hectares are to be brought under cultivation with cane.

These things will be discussed with the people of the area, and we hope that they will meet with their approval. At present we cannot do any of these things because we have no money. There has been no issue of title deeds and there is no Indigenous local labour. (Time expired)