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

We've already built on the $6 billion white paper process to develop northern Australia in this year's budget, where a further $1½ billion was allocated to the Roads of Strategic Importance program. This program is to build on the Northern Australia Beef Roads Program and the Northern Australia Roads Program, which I mentioned in answers to previous questions. That will help unlock even more economic opportunity for northern Australia. We are receiving back some of those water feasibility studies which show that dams can be built across northern Australia, including recent CSIRO work which has identified six new dam proposals across northern Australia. We must support development for our Indigenous Australians, who make up more than 15 per cent of the population in northern Australia, and particularly respect their views when they want development to occur, whether it's in the cape or with the development of the Carmichael coal project, where 294 out of the 295 Wangan and Yagalingu people who voted on this project voted for the Adani mine. They want it to go ahead, and we should support the views of the Aboriginal Australians who want to see jobs.