Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

The senator is also right that there is enormous opportunity across northern Australia as well, despite depressed economic opportunity in some areas at the moment. The resources of northern Australia have already produced enormous amounts of economic wealth for our country. It accounts for more than 50 per cent of our exports. More than 50 per cent of our exports leave from northern Australia because of mainly the mineral resources and energy resources of northern Australia.

There are enormous water resources in northern Australia as well. More than 60 per cent of our rainfall falls on the 40 per cent of our land mass that is northern Australia. Those resources are largely untapped, particularly in my area of Central Queensland, where the country's second-largest river catchment, the Fitzroy Basin, exists. There is only one major dam there, but we want to change that. We want to build the Rookwood Weir, which could create 2,100 jobs, double agricultural production in the Fitzroy Basin and droughtproof the towns of Rockhampton and Gladstone as well. But we are being held up by a Queensland Labor government that wants to talk and talk, do more studies and invest in projects in inner-city Brisbane but not back a dam in Central Queensland.