STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator McDONALD (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (13:30): Enough is enough. Cloncurry Airport had the Prime Minister and Minister McBain stand on it and survey the damage from floodwater. They were promised money to repair and secure that important facility.

This is not just money to repair a strip. This is the infrastructure that underpins the FIFO workforce that gets copper out of the ground to go to the Mount Isa smelter to support the $600 million that the governments have committed to this important copper processing smelter. The Prime Minister stood there, saw the damage, promised money and years later has done two parts of nothing about it.

It is outrageous because the next wet season is coming. The council is ready to let a contract to tender as early as next week, but, if this money is not spent, this strip will have to be downgraded. It will risk ore not going through the Mount Isa smelter, it will risk jobs in the north-west and it will risk the Cloncurry-and-surrounds community being able to get in and out of a remote part of the state.

I don't understand where the minister gets off. This is a lie. This is a lie because the Prime Minister committed to it.

If the funding panel cannot see that this was a government commitment that is part of an important cross-portfolio desire to see the north-west minerals province not only survive but thrive, they need to be replaced. There's nothing else for it. The Prime Minister committed to this money.

Minister McBain, I'm asking you. Get out from behind your desk. Go and see other ministers.

Make this funding happen. We cannot wait for another wet season with the airstrip being closed. (Time expired)