Media Release

Last week KAP Member for Kennedy visited the Cairns headquarters of the $5 billion Northern Australian infrastructure loan facility (NAIF). Mr Katter was shocked to find NAIF is still in an establishment phase with an interim CEO based in Melbourne. Mr Katter will be requesting a meeting with the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to address the lack of headway at NAIF.

Mr Katter said, "What NAIF has done has taken the fig leaf off and shown clearly that the Federal Government’s northern initiative has been emasculated.

"We were very surprised when we went to meet NAIF in Cairns, that with a twelfth of the Government’s life already gone (three of its 36 months have been expended), we find only empty offices in Cairns with a solitary, interim staff member answering telephones and a banker CEO who is based in Melbourne.

"The membership of the board comprises of no one from Nth Qld. I don’t mean to be disrespectful but there is no one from Nth of the Tropic of Capricorn. There is a former northern mayor who is a person from down south and who is not very relevant.

"So NAIF a rather curious, vacant office and its board is full of corporate people from southern capital cities.

"The National Party is absolutely notorious for pork-barreling and it has been placed in charge of the NAIF. That doesn’t fill me with hope.

"But what most fills me with fear is I was told there are 70 applications to the NAIF.

"A majority of these are in my electorate and I am not aware of a single application.

"In Nth Qld, no development can take place in Cape York, so in fact the Kennedy electorate covers all the surface area of development for Nth Qld the exception of urban areas and a narrow strip between Mackay and Ayr.

"I am not aware of a single application which would lead me to believe all the applications have come from Southern and foreign corporate applications who will take our assets off us and fly in our workers from down south and overseas.

"I think the people who proposed NAIF, i.e. Peta Credlin and later on Malcolm Turnbull didn’t intend for it to go this way. But at this stage, the Prime Minister has a short 24 months to get projects off the ground. Currently, NAIF hasn’t awarded any project and it has no employees or a permanent CEO, not to mention not a single Nth Qlder on the board!

"I will be seeking discussions Malcolm Turnbull as soon as possible," said Mr Katter.

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