Media Release

In Parliament this week KAP Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter spoke forcefully on the Government’s Register of Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land Amendment (Water) Bill 2016.

Mr Katter considers the creation of a register to monitor our water being sold off to foreign interests isn’t the solution, it is a bandaid to a most serious issue.

Mr Katter thinks the Government developing the North’s water resources for the people and to stop selling off the water to foreign interest is the answer.

Mr Katter said, “This bill is saying that we should have a register. I do not say we should have a register. I say this place should stand on its own two feet.

“Water entitlements are solid gold. You do not give them out to foreign corporations. You do not give them out to big absentee landlords. You give them out to the people.”

Mr Katter asks the question, so what are we doing with our water? “There are 300 million megalitres in Australia. Of those, 220 million megalitres are in north-east Queensland. For reasons best known to themselves, the government decided that Fitzroy in Western Australia is not going to be developed.

“The Ord, for reasons best known to the government, has been given—it was not bought—to the Chinese, along with the Port of Darwin, which was sold; we got something out of that, but nothing out of the Ord.

The only place you can develop water resources in Australia is North Queensland.

“In Queensland, after 26 years, since the demise of the Bjelke-Petersen government in 1990—the much maligned government that was building a major dam every single year for some 15 years in Queensland—there has not been a single dam built in Queensland, not even a weir. There are town water supplies, but that is all.

“If we, the people do not own the water, we will get no benefit. No register will stop that”

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