Tony Abbott was out of the gates early this morning to distance himself from a leaked report canvassing a policy to develop the north of Australia.
No, the Liberal party had no intention of having lower tax rates for those living north of the Tropic of Capricorn, he said. (The constitution prohibits such a move, anyway.) No, people would not be forced to leave the western suburbs of Sydney and relocate to some patch of barren earth in the far north.
But let’s not get into the petty tit-for-tat of Canberra politics.
The development of the north is a subject worthy of discussion and debate, but you do not have a hope in hell of getting that from our present crop of party time-servers, who laughingly call themselves federal politicians.
For readers of Miningnews.net, however, the real disappointment may be that the Liberals involved in drafting what seems nothing more than a discussion paper did not even think about mining. (It was 30 pages long apparently, so may well have; it’s just that the leaks were reported by Canberra-based journalists who wouldn’t know a mine if they fell down one.)
If no consideration was indeed given to mining, however, we would be entitled to become greatly concerned. After all, this is the alternative federal government, and it’s mining that makes possible all the online shopping from Europe and the US, the importing of all those Japanese-made cars, and so on.
Just before getting warmed up on this subject, allow me to digress. The point is that the development of the north has been one of the great mirages of Australian thinking. It has been our own home-grown cargo cult.
There were great schemes like the 1902 plan to complete the railway line to Darwin which would open up, it was argued, 334 million acres for farming. It was suggested that it be built privately, with the railway company being granted 75,000 acres for each kilometre completed. The same South Australian government report (South Australia did not hand over the Northern Territory to the federal government until 1911) had the vision of water schemes that would make possible thriving farms with sheep, cattle and vegetables. Ostrich farming, even. Cheap Asian labour would be admitted to work on vast rice farms, along with growing coffee, jute, sugar and rubber.
So, 111 years later, we still have the same yearning for the great northern development, the food bowl to feed Asia. It is true that technology has brought the dream closer.
However, why not think in terms of development that dovetails with Australia’s mineral industry?
That would really be some creative thinking - and do-able, and more certain to succeed than the food bowl dream.
Just a few weeks ago, Outcrop stirred the pot about the idea to build a railway across the north linking the east and west coasts, with smelter parks at each end, bringing together iron ore (Pilbara) and coal (Queensland) to make steel for our own needs and export.
Already we have seen that the Darwin railway has brought transport options to mineral projects along its corridor. There’s nothing miraculous yet but it’s a start; and certainly there has been no real effort to use it for other than moving ore to Darwin port for export.
If you look at the mining industry as a job creator, it’s not all that much chop. According to the recent KPMG report commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia on mining communities, even in the mining regions this industry has only a 17% employment sector share.
Manufacturing - and that means processing those minerals - is quite a different fish. Manufacturing is the greatest jobs multiplier available (which is why the government keeps shovelling money into the car industry). You build a steel mill or any other processing plant and you have large-scale employment - just as people in Newcastle or Wollongong who remember the 1960s. And prosperity.
Yes, Mr Abbott, by all means develop the north. But don’t overlook the most obvious sector that could be harnessed.
There’s more to mining than the mining tax, you know.
