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

I thank Senator Anning for that question and for the advance notice of it. I recognise Senator Anning's passion and commitment to develop water resources in Queensland and across Australia. We have abundant water resources in Queensland, and it is unfortunate that there have been delays in getting going on this very important infrastructure project for Central Queensland, the Rookwood Weir. It's now been 620 days since the federal government said that we were willing to put half the funds up to drought-proof Central Queensland, to create more than 2,100 jobs and to potentially double the agricultural production in Central Queensland. The Fitzroy Basin, where this weir is, is the second-largest water catchment in our country, behind the Murray-Darling, and it has enormous agricultural potential. We want to get on with the job of creating Australian jobs and growing Australian food for the people of Australia, for the people of Central Queensland.

But the Queensland government wanted to do another business case, notwithstanding that this has been looked at for 10 years, notwithstanding that Peter Beattie said back last decade that it would be built by 2011—the former Premier of Queensland said he'd build Rookwood Weir by 2011. But the Queensland government wanted to do another business case, so we had to wait for them to do that. That's been the reason for the delay. The business case has come back. Now, unfortunately, the price has gone up because of those delays. Because it's gone on for a year and a half, the price has become more expensive. These are the costs of Labor inaction, Labor incompetence—because they can never make a decision and get on with the job and create jobs for our region. Notwithstanding these delays, we are committed to this project. We want to see it happen. We want to create opportunity for this country. We want to create opportunity for people in regional Queensland who have been suffering with a slow economy. We want to create jobs. That's why we want to build dams around this country. We want to get on with the job of building and creating and using our natural water resources to create jobs and grow food.