The Liberal Partys Vision 2030 proposal for northern development has lost its whiskers. It now has a beard. It must be an election year for the Liberals to trot out this worn out cliché.
The two party system comprising tweedledum and tweedledee will now try to outdo each other with plans to grow grain in the Gulf Region or sugarcane on Cape York.
Of course it goes without saying little will happen under their watch.
Its a bit like the 40 year old scheme in West Australias Ord River region, which failed miserably, due mainly to pest invasion of crops.
Naturally, by 2013 scientists have developed more resistant varieties of grain, sugar cane and bananas along with vastly improved farming methods, but input and real estate costs since then have gone up immeasurably.
Probably we will have to rely on the Chinese government to grow our food on the 15,000 hectare OrdRiver irrigation block the West Australian Liberal Government just gave them, which cost $400 million of taxpayers money to develop.
They also have an option on another 15,000 hectares in a deal brokered by Labor Party statesman Bob Hawke.
The north and west can be best developed by family farmers who will be financed by the yet to be created National Development Bank, not by other countries.
Bob Katter has been promoting this infrastructure development and the method to finance it for many years, having a minor win when a limited irrigation scheme was set up last year in the Cloncurry district.
I think the Liberals are worried Bob Katter might have stolen their newfound thunder ten years ago. – Editor