Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister, is it 93 per cent of Australia's surface area that is populated by fewer than one million people? Your government's 20,000-hectare Hughenden irrigation scheme will create 200 farms and a pastoral paradise for 500 families. Won't 15 other such schemes support over 200,000 people into inland Australia? Is not the Hughenden model critical to the creation of a new and more wonderful nation?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The short answer to that question is yes. Certainly, I will take the specifications that the member has outlined, as he has read them out.

This is a big project; it is a nation-building project and a nation-changing project, particularly for North Queensland, a part of the country that was so ravaged two years ago. Today, we're seeing the floods which are ravaging New South Wales, South-East Queensland and other parts of the country, and, increasingly, over the next few days we'll see it in parts of inland Australia. Two years ago it was in North Queensland, and I want to thank the member for his support as we stood together in facing that great challenge up there in North Queensland. The recovery effort that has come into place now in that part of the country is a great testament to the wonderful people of North Queensland and those in his electorate.

The Commonwealth has provided some $10 million towards a detailed business case, due to be completed by February 2022. The member knows, as I know, that I would like to see this done as soon as possible and for things to move as quickly as they possibly can. The Queensland government has said that they will only consider co-funding once a detailed business case is completed, so we are getting on with that work. The project is managed by the NQWIA. The preliminary business case examines multiple configurations and capacity options, and proposes the development of a rockfill embankment with a clay core adjacent to the Flinders River and the Saego Station. This will create an off-stream water storage facility in the order, as the member has said, of 200,000 megalitres. The proposed off-stream water storage facility will enable 84,000 megalitres per year, with a yield of some 80 per cent reliability, to support an irrigation area of up to 10,000 hectares of diversified crops over the extensive grasslands of the southern side of the Flinders River.

The member is correct and, if he might indulge me: if Dame Mary—Aunt Mary—were alive today she would write a verse about this project. I'm sure the member would be very apt at being able to recite it.

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