Mr KATTER (7:54 PM) —Last night we had a very pleasant function with Doug Anthony, which you, Mr Speaker, attended, and it brought to my mind the very great achievements of the government of that period. I was recently at the gulf towns of Normanton and Karumba, and the wonderful beef road that was built from Cloncurry up to the Port of Normanton and then on to the more modern port of Karumba has been a boon that has enabled that little port to now put through $1,000 million worth of product every year, starting the year after next. It is already doing about $200 million or $300 million worth of product now. It gives me no joy to recount that, whilst the airstrip at Normanton was sealed by the then government, the airstrip at Karumba has not been sealed, and these responsibilities are now the responsibilities of local government. Fifteen years of Labor governments has shown a total neglect of all regional areas of Australia, and it is something that this government must take cognisance of and reverse.

We also built the massive Snowy Mountains Authority projects mostly affecting New South Wales cities, and little tiny townships such as Deniliquin, Griffith and Hay became flourishing inland cities of which every person in this country can be very proud. The Ord Scheme at the top of Western Australia is now turning a very handsome profit for this nation in spite of a number of years of difficulty. I am very proud to say that in Queensland where we had a National Party government as well as a federal National Party which was very active and aggressive in the federal government of the day, we built the Bundaberg Dam, the Kinchant Dam, the Bjelke-Petersen Dam, the Burdekin Falls Dam, the Emerald Dam and the Proserpine Dam. They were massive achievements, and I deeply regret that the representative of the Labor Party here thinks this is funny.

Mr Kelvin Thomson interjecting—

Mr KATTER —Those achievements created 100,000 jobs in Queensland, and those dams are responsible for bringing well over $1,000 million per year into the economy of Queensland. Maybe closer to $2,000 million per year has been created by the building of those dams. In those 20 glorious years that we, if not reigned supreme, most certainly had a very substantial say in the government of Australia, we were able to achieve great things, and it is with deep regret that, in the 15 years since the waning of the National Party's powers, there has not been a single, solitary dam undertaken in Queensland—not one.

As I have pointed out in the House previously and I will do so again this evening, you can get in an aeroplane and fly from Townsville all the way to Broome, look out either side of that aircraft and not see a single sign of human habitation, and yet you have just flown over three-quarters of this nation's water assets and more than half of the nation's arable land. There is nothing down there at all. I would urge, in the strongest possible manner, this House to look at what should be the next dam scheme in Australia, which is the Hell Gates dam on the Burdekin River—the third biggest river in Australia. That scheme, according to the economic analysts—outside economic analysts, I might add, as well as from the Queensland government—will produce $720 million of revenue a year for the Australian nation for an outlay of $420 million. We do not even need $420 million. All we need is somewhere between $50 million and $75 million out of a federation fund or some other government instrumentality or department and we can proceed to return to this country $720 million a year of which, in all probability, $240 million will come to this government every single year by way of taxation. If any business person had a proposition put to them that, for an outlay of some, let us say, $60 million, you can show an annual return of $240 million, that would be a magnificent return on invested capital. I urge in the strongest possible way that this House consider what is genuine job creation and progress for this nation.

Question resolved in the affirmative.