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Tuesday, 19 December 1911

Mr JOSEPH COOK - I have never heard of him. Where did he come from, what are his qualifications, and what is his salary? It is farcical to regard a man who is getting ,£500 or ,£600 a year in that part of the world as an expert on development by railway extension. This country is cursed more by the policy of doing with the second-best than by anything else. We should be large-minded enough to search for the best, and to press it into the service of the Commonwealth. There are elsewhere those who have had experience in dealing with the problems with which we are faced, ' and the attraction of adventure and a high salary will secure the best talent in the world. . We need to obtain that talent,, and to let it loose in the Northern . Territory, so as to get the full value of it. That ought to have been done long ago. After we have waited twelve months, practically nothing is proposed. AH we know is that a £500- a-year-man is going to undertake the work of reporting on railway development.

Mr Thomas - Mr. Francis gets £650 a year.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - That is equivalent to .£400 or .£500 a year here. For the right man, .£4,000 a year would not be too much. He would be worth it, if he could sketch out the right policy. I do not suggest that we should immediately pay ,£4,000 a -year, but we should search for the best talent. If we can get it for less, well and good, but otherwise we must pay for it what is asked. Our prime need is ability and experience. This is not the first time that problems like these with which we are faced have been tackled, and experience counts for everything in regard to them. The Minister last night told us nothing new. He is merely tinkering with the business. We. are losing ^400,000 a year- on 'the Territory, but even ..if everything 'he . suggests were done,.. ..it would not enable us to overtake the. deficit within twenty years, to say nothing of peopling the country, and giving us the security we ought to feel in respect of the rest of Australia by a policy of development up there. The Territory is being administered by the wrong Department. Whataffinity is there between the Department of External Affairs and the development of an internal policy?

Mr Poynton - The Territory is big enough to engage the undivided attention of one Minister.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - Certainly, and should it not be linked up with the Department of Home Affairs, which has in its service both engineers and surveyors? The Minister of External Affairs has no machinery by which to begin the developmentof the Territory.

Mr Wise -Does not the honorable member think that the Department of Home Affairs has bitten off, so tospeak, as much as it can chew ?

Mr JOSEPH COOK - Yes. There, again, we have too much concentration. One man is supposed to dealwith the establishment of theFederal Capital, the erection of a small arms factory, and a hundred and one other matters. The sooner we press into the service some of the firstrate ability of the world, the better. I am not underrating the men we have. I should be sorry to underrate a man like Colonel Owen, whom I believe to be clever, able, and industrious ; but he is struggling to do too much, and the sooner he is relieved of some of the detail of his office the better for the country and all concerned. He is paid much less than he is worth, and whilst he is a very able man, with the problems we have before us, we need a lot of able men. We have in the Northern Territory an area as large as two or three of the countries of Europe, and we have sent up there to look after it a man who is receiving a salary of£650 a year.

Mr Thomas - He has to manage 150 miles of railway, and he receives £650 a year.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - Does not the honorable member think that while that officer may be an excellent traffic manager, he mayyet know nothing of these problems? We do not expect a traffic manager to discuss theories of engineering and' surveying. This officer may be doing excellent work, and yet be totally unfit to report on the question of railway facilities for the Territory - We need for this work one of the best engineers, and with him a first-class surveyor, with a wide knowledge of country. Two or three such men should have been appointed twelve months ago and set going with all theresponsibilities and authority that could have been given to them as a Royal Commission. By this time they would have been ready to make a progress report. This work will have to be done, or the Minister's proposals will mean nothing. Youmay put down your farms in various districts, but until you know whether you can have railways there what isthe good of putting them down.

Mr Thomas - One of them willbe where there is a railway already in existence.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - Then why was it not set going long ago? It seems to take some of these Departments a couple of years to lookround before making 'a start with anything.

Mr.Thomas. - The Estimates are not even passed.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - What have they to do with this matter ? The honorable gentleman might anticipate the approval of this Parliament in regard to any reasonable scheme for spending money on this Territory with a view to its development. We need not to discuss politics, but to do something. This is about the tenth policy we have discussed in respect of the Northern Territory and Papua.

Mr Webster - That ought to be enough.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - The honorable member has been in the Northern Territory for about twenty-five minutes, and he has, of course, a complete territorial policy to put before us.

Mr Webster - The honorable member was not even game to go up there for that length of time.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - But I think I know as much of it as some of those who did visit the Territory. I have no faith in my ability to study problems like those now before us by hurrying over the country on horseback. I believe that I can learn as much by reading, and should like to hear some sort of agreement among those who visited the Territory. One of them is perfectly certain that agriculture can be developed in the Northern Territory, and another is equally certain that it cannot.

Mr Webster - With plenty of money, as the honorable member knows, we can develop anything.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - And what we want in this case is a little money, a little initiative, and a little vigour infused into the administration of the Territory.

Mr Thomas Brown - We want some common-sense.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - I ask the honorable member to suggest what those commonsense methods should be. Commonsense will be of no service unless it is first applied to the multiplication of facilities for opening up the country.

Mr Webster - I am told that there are millions of money in England waiting to be poured into the Territory as soon as we open it up.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - The honorable member is trying to be sarcastic, and the role does not suit him. We know that he is always in deadly earnest. I am not suggesting that he has not tried to apply his mind to this problem, and the douche of cold water that we may expect from him' presently is not perhaps a bad thing. We cannot do better than look at these matters from all points of view, but there are some things that are fundamental and preliminary to all others, and in this case they have been admirably sketched for us this morning by the honorable member for Grey. Railways and a knowledge of the country are the two first requisites. Let us set to work an experienced surveyor and a railway expert, and we shall begin to solve this troublesome difficulty. First of all we want to know how the proposed railway will meet our defence problem - for this, after all, is not merely a problem of settle- ment, but a problem of defence. The question of railway gauge will, therefore, have to engage the attention of the Government at any early date. An interjection wasmade by the late Minister of External Affairs as to what the gauge was to be-

Mr Poynton - It is practically settled, since we have adopted a 4-ft. 8½in gauge in the case of the other transcontinental line.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - But is a railway of that gauge to be carried into the Northern Territory? Surely that question ought to have been settled before now by the Government ? Yet when it was mentioned last night by way of interjection, whilst the Minister was speaking, it was brushed aside as a mere trifle that meant nothing. As a matter of fact, it is one of the most important of the preliminary considerations. . When we have determined what is to be done for defence, as well as for settlement, we can develop onthe lines sketched by the Minister. We can then begin to breed our horses and freeze our sheep. Itis useless to commence freezing operations until we know that we can get to market the produce so treated. I believe that it costs from £25to£30pertontocarry stores to some of the stations, and it would cost just as much to get their produce to the coast.

Mr Webster - Instead of freezing sheep, they " frizzle " them up there.

Mr JOSEPH COOK - No; these freezing establishments will be the salvation of the Territory, and it is very desirable that we shoulddetermine the best places at which to establish them. That, again, cannot be determined until our railway policy has been sketched. Thirteen months have elapsed since the Territory came over to us, and do honorable members think that the Minister has yet sketched for us an outline of proposals that will help to lift this incubus from our shoulders, and make the Territory a source of strength, instead of weakness, to Australia? I ask the Minister whether during the forty years of government of the Territory by South Australia there has not been accumulated a series of proposals that will help him? Were the papers relating to the Territory transferred with the Department to the Commonwealth, or do they remain hidden in the South Australian archives? If there are no such papers it seems to me to be a strange reflection on the South Australian Government, and on all its efforts to develop this Territory, of which we have heard so much. The Department of External Affairs having had to do with this matter for thirteen months ought to be in possession of all. the knowledge that is available in South Australia. This ought to have been freely sent over with the Territory, and, on the basis of that, we should surely have had a more bold and statesmanlike proposal for dealing with the Territory than the mere trumpery details furnished to us by the Minister last night.

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