Lobbyists pressuring governments for another dam in the region such as Cave Hill on the Cloncurry River were “100 per cent right”.

“Water and power, you can’t separate the two,” Mr O’Sullivan said. 

“Unless you have water you can’t have development, if you don’t have power you can’t develop.”

Mr O’Sullivan said water, power and incentives for workers in the country’s top end needed consideration in the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia expected to be released next month. 

Changes to legislation were needed too. 

“Unless we look at subsets of legislation that will provide special incentive for the parallel investment that’s required ... I think we’ll get off to a sluggish start,” Mr O’Sullivan said. 

“I think there needs to be a really special, almost zonal incentive.” 

When asked if he was hinting at a zone tax allowance – lobbied extensively by local politicians including Mount Isa Mayor Tony Mcgrady – the Senator said; “I don’t want to describe it further.” But added; “if we’re going to develop a new zone we need to make it appealing for private investment.” 

He said money should not be thrown at “greenfield projects”.

Instead it should be used to build on existing communities and industry supply chains with theoretical examples being the Bowen Basin and the railway line between Mount Isa and Townsville. 

“It’s always been my view that we should deal with fill-in projects before we start to go to greenfield projects, by that I mean where we already have structure like a community or appropriate infrastructure we can exploit.’’

The Senator was aware of views along the Mount Isa to Townsville railway encouraging the sharing of existing infrastructure between the public and private sectors. 

 “That is a fantastic concept for a private and public partnership,” Mr O’Sullivan said.