Media Release

Following the Hell’s Gate Dam site inspection with Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce this week, KAP Member for Kennedy Bob Katter is calling for a joint environmental statement from the State and Federal Governments.

Mr Katter wants the statement to outline the Hell’s Gate Dam project:

The project is of no danger to the Great Barrier Reef,

The project reduces CO2,

The project has zero emissions.

Mr Katter requested Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce inspect the Hell’s Gate Dam site just ten days earlier, “obviously he [APM] has a very great interest and commitment,” said Mr Katter,

Mr Katter is not interested in federal money for a Hell’s Gate Business Case study, “we’ve got $5.5M which is pretty relevant for yet anotherstudy, but we’re not going to take any notice of that.

“I made it perfectly clear that I don’t care what comes out of the study, we want the project to go ahead.

“I pointed out to the Deputy Prime Minister that the LNP government promised us water development in Northern Australia three years ago. With nearly two-thirds of Australia’s entire water, we’ve not got a puddle of water in three years! Now all we get is more studies. This is going at the speed over the ‘Never-Never Plan’.”

Mr Katter made a crucial ‘jobs’ creation’ pitch to Acting Prime Minister Joyce,

“The important thing I got through to Barnaby today -- and when I met him last week is that we have 120,000 people out of work in Nth Qld.

“You have only got two projects for Nth Qld: The railway into the Galilee Basin, which should have been started by the State Government and/or by the Federal Government five years ago…. And Hell’s Gate.

“Now may God help the State government if that railway line has not been commenced before the State election next year. The Government will be taken to the cleaners on a massive scale.”

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