Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the government's plans to develop northern Australia? How will the government deliver more investment, more infrastructure and more jobs in the North?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. It is a good question, and it is a great passion of his, as it is of so many members on this side of the House. Northern Australia has sometimes been seen as our last frontier. I want to assure the member, and indeed our people generally, that as far as this government is concerned northern Australia is our next frontier. Northern Australia is a land of opportunity—a land of much more opportunity now than just a few years ago. As I was able to inform the House just a few days ago, I was in the Northern Territory to open a new meat processing facility thanks to a $100 million-plus investment by the Australian Agricultural Company. This will create 300 jobs. It will process 300,000 head of cattle. It is much beloved of the member for Solomon. This is what happens in northern Australia when you do not have a carbon tax, when you are not banning live cattle sales and when you do have the kind of free trade agreements that this government has been able to negotiate.

This is a government that is committed to northern Australia and is backing up our rhetoric with actual investments. There is $3 billion that will be invested in the Bruce Highway in North Queensland; there is $300 million-plus for the Great Northern Highway; there is more than $200 million for roads and other infrastructure in Cape York; there is $170 million for the North West Coastal Highway; and there is more than $200 million for roads in the Northern Territory, including Tiger Brennan Drive. I know the member for Herbert was very happy to stand beside me when I announced that Townsville airport will soon be able to support regular international flights, and there is also the $42 million that we are giving to the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine in Townsville.

I want to confirm that by mid-year the northern Australia white paper will be out. The focus is on building priority roads, developing water resources, attracting more investment and reducing red tape. I want to thank the member for Leichhardt for the work of the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia, and I acknowledge the new reference on aquaculture that the committee has got. I am particularly pleased that the Minister for Trade and Investment will be the coordinating minister with responsibility for the white paper's finalisation.

Our responsibility in this place is to ensure that our children and our grandchildren live in a better country than we do. That is our responsibility. We should not set limits on what this country can achieve, and that means making the most of the potential of northern Australia, and that is exactly what this government will do.

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.