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

There is a piece of historic legislation that has come into the House, and that is what is called the mandatory code of conduct. It is nothing very complicated. All it says is, firstly, that farmers get a sales docket so they can prove something has been sold and they cannot be taken to the cleaners as they have been for the last 30 or 40 years; and, secondly, that the money be paid into a trust fund, the same as with a lawyer, real estate broker or insurance agent. There are a whole range of areas where there is a trust fund kept. There is no trust fund kept in this case, and in Far North Queensland alone in the last two or three years we have lost $3 million.

So we want to publicly thank the great fighters—and they have been truly great fighters. If ever there were a group throughout Australia that was a team of really great fighters, it was the Emerald Creek mob: the Rural Action Council of Far North Queensland. I think it is important that their names be put on the public record. Johnny Gambino has given us very great leadership as chairman. One of the greatest fighters I have seen in my lifetime, Bernie O'Shea, on numerous occasions has taken the battle up for us. Maxie Srhoj is the reason that I sit as an Independent in this place. It was Maxie who said, 'Whilst, Bob, you do all the right things and say all the right things, at the end of the day you earn your $200,000 and we're bleeding to death.' The way Maxie said that and what he said convinced me that I could not do that anymore. I simply could not walk down the street and say I was on the side of the farmers when I knew that every day I sat in this place supporting the then government I was against the farmers. What we were doing was stamping with approval actions which must lead to their demise.

Joe Moro has been the President of the Mareeba District Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association in the Atherton Tablelands and the Mareeba area. He has been a great leader of them but has also been a part of the Emerald Creek mob as well. Scottie Dixon came in late in the picture, but there is no better fighter in this country for Australians and Australians getting a fair go in the area of farming. Ned Brischetto is an absolute tower of strength. Vince Mete is always there, along with Emedio Nicolosi and Peter Henderson. Eddie Bernabei, who died recently, most certainly always had his say. Other people from time to time have come along: Johnny Myrteza, John Sephora and all of Joe Moro's crew from Mareeba farmers as well. But whilst there has been no other group that I know of in Queensland that has taken the fight up, these people have taken the fight up all of the time. Please, God, if the Liberals can come to the party then they will see a great achievement for all of the farmers of Australia.

Switching subjects completely, there was a decision made by the Xstrata mining company, which was an Australian company allowed by the government to be sold out to foreign interests. Those foreign interests—namely, a boardroom in Zurich in Switzerland—have made the decision that they will not buy power from the national grid. They will have their own little outfit, and the rest of us can go jump in the ocean. That leaves the greatest mineral province on earth—North-West Queensland's mineral province, which produces $12 thousand million a year in base metals—now as an island without power. It is like an island in the Pacific that has no water. No-one can live on it if it has no water. No mines or economic development can take place if you have no electricity. It is exactly the same argument.

We have had the economic future of inland North Queensland completely destroyed by this decision. The decision has to be reversed by government. The idea is that the market will look after us. Well, here is a case where the market is destroying us. There are 5,000 jobs in the 12 new mines proposed in North-West Queensland; I doubt we will get two of them off the ground now. That is 12 mines, 5,000 jobs and the great Pentland project, the biggest solar biofuels project in the world and the second-biggest wind farm in the world, in which tens of millions of dollars have already been spent, particularly in the wind labs at Hughenden. This great project for the future has been destroyed. It must be restored. (Time expired)