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

I thank Senator Macdonald for his question and recognise his longstanding interest in long-term planning for our north. I might deal with his latter question first. I think if I asked anyone on the other side to put up their hand if they live in northern Australia, you'd have no-one—no-one at all! But, over on this side, we do have Senate representation in the 40 per cent of our landmass that does make up northern Australia.

A few years ago the government outlined a visionary white paper to develop northern Australia and, in that white paper, we committed to look at the water resources of three water catchments across the north: the Mitchell River in the cape, the Darwin catchment in the Northern Territory and the Fitzroy River in Western Australia. The CSIRO has had 100 of our best and brightest scientists working on this for the past 2½ years, and they have reported that there is great potential across those three water catchments, and that potentially nearly 400,000 hectares could be irrigated across these three water catchments. That would mean an additional 15,000 jobs across northern Australia and more than $5 billion in annual economic activity for Australia. This is great news for our country—that we can, if we have the vision, do long-term things for the benefit of our nation. They have used the best science to look at this.

This is 400,000 hectares. To put that into context, we only irrigate just over two million hectares today, right across Australia. So 400,000 extra hectares in the north is an enormous increase in our agricultural potential, just across three water catchments. That is why the AgForce CEO, Michael Guerin, says that an objective analysis like this from our respected national science agency really drives home just how much potential there is for agriculture to grow and create jobs in Far North Queensland. That's a vision that we share. I know that's a vision that Senator Macdonald shares. We need all of this parliament to share a vision and a plan for northern Australia.