Katter calls bull dust over Senator’s population pledge
A SEETHING Bob Katter has slammed the Minister for Regionalisation calling ‘bull dust’ to her pledge that [1]Townsville’s population growth will explode to a million as more migrants, families and businesses move to the region.
Instead, Mr Katter said Senator McKenzie should read a few of his speeches and perhaps then she will understand that the road to a million people lies in the construction of Hells Gates Dam proper.
“She has come up here with bull dust flying and without the slightest scintilla of reality of any action plan. Even the most cursory briefing would put some substance in her plethora of aspirational comments. I’ll send her a couple of my speeches to help her out.
“The SMEC Hells Gates proposals destroys this city’s chance for exponential growth and the current proposal by Townsville Enterprise and SMEC destroys Bradfield and any chance of Townsville becoming a city of even half a million people.
“This is their own Government’s appalling irresponsibility – and it’s the National Party element not the Liberals that handle control over Townsville Enterprise and SMEC.
“They are allowing a proposal for what is a relatively small irrigation project with maybe a hundred farms. To put that in perspective, last time I looked, Ayr had 960 and Ingham, 680 farms.”
Mr Katter said if Hells Gates Dam was built as originally conceived, the population of Townsville would explode.
“Hells Gates should be as it was always conceived by the greatest engineering firms that have built more dams than anyone else in Australia’s history and Bradfield, the greatest engineer.
“But if it is built properly, not as a farming proposal, but as an industrial proposal, it will produce.
“They have refused to read the actual document which synthesises all of the proposals put forward by some of the finest minds this country has ever produced. The document is the Upper Burdekin Irrigation Scheme (UBurIS).
“And UBurIS says, yes, you grow sugar cane, but not 50,000 hectares, this is 120,000 hectares. And because of where it is growing, you will get over 100 tonne to the hectare and well over 15 CCS, which you most certainly won’t get if you are growing it near the coast.
“Because it is sugar cane, it becomes the feedstock for massive electricity, clean CO2-free energy forever, 2) it produces ethanol, clean, green, and takes the carcinogenic out of the petrol 3) produces timber and 4) it produces massive algae stockfeed. There are no CO2 emissions because the CO2 is needed to feed the algae. It is not an emission, it is a product.”
Mr Katter said it was imperative that the dam was built to a height of 390 metres above sea level in order to leverage gravity fed water flow.
“To achieve this we need to get it to the break in the Dividing Range so it establishes the first stage of the giant Bradfield scheme, and the wall needs to be 390 metres above sea level.
“The original proposal was put together by four people including myself; the smartest bloke I know, Roy Stainkey, the youngest doctorate ever awarded to an Australian, a university professor who has chosen to remain anonymous and Sir Leo Hilscher who created the juggernaut Queensland economy that we are still bludging off today.
“The other thing it produces is water for Townsville and because it has got a hydraulic head, you will actually get paid for bringing the water to Townsville. If you go to where they want to go, you will have to pump and it will cost the people a fortune. You can get extremely valuable, peak hydro out of it as well, but it is being built by a bunch of morons.
“I have spoken to the people who I consider the leading and most powerful people in Townsville including the Council, and not one of them doesn’t believe that the Scheme should be built properly.
“But the Senator and her mob have continued to treat the Prime Minister with contempt, the Cabinet Minister with contempt, the Assistant Minister with contempt and the people of North Queensland with contempt.
“The great tragedy is that these people live in a vacuum, they don’t interface with the real representatives of the people or the people that have the discernment and energy to figure out what needs to be done.”
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