Mr Wharton spoke about the Northern Australian CRC’s gradual but deliberate progress after Townsville was today named as its new headquarters

The $75 million CRC was announced in the Coalition government’s Northern Development White Paper released in June last year and will focus on dedicated research into agriculture and food industries and tropical and remote health.

Mr Wharton said since the CRC was announced, an interim committee had consulted about 700 people throughout the Northern Australia while a stream of research applications had also been received and are due to formally processed after July 1.

He said the CRC would kick-off with a $75m commitment from the federal government over 10 years but financial and in-kind contributions from industry research partners could produce a combined research spend of up to $200m.

“If this works and we get a lot of success the government may even kick in a bit more money,” he said.

“Project applicants need to contribute dollar per dollar funding or make in-kind contributions to research projects which could take the total amount to $2000m, over the 10 years.

“We’ve already met with 700 people during the consultation process across Northern Australia and received project applications from Broome, Port Hedland and Kununurra in WA, to Darwin and Katherine in the NT, and across to Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Emerald and Cloncurry in Queensland.”

Mr Wharton said Townsville had been announced as the CRC’s headquarters which would probably create four or five local jobs.

But he said the new location was “not the main game” because the core activity would be where the actual research activities are conducted.

“This CRC is being driven by industry and if that’s what industry wants, that’s where the funding goes for the research work whether it’s for agriculture or food and tropical and remote health,” he said.

“Businesses within those three industries will be the key drivers of this CRC and the cattle industry is a big one for agriculture.

“Applications have already come in for research projects that will be driven by a commercial return and those who put in an application for funding will need to show the business case.

“It’s all about the businesses – they’re the real drivers of this research - and that’s the kicker with this CRC.”

Mr Wharton said he expected the CRC’s board - which was not yet formalised - to comprise seven or eight members comprising representatives from the core industries and stakeholders.

He said the Board would act like a lobby group in partnering with State and Territory governments but while seeking to overcome legislative barriers prohibit northern development like varied land tenure arrangements or restrictive tree clearing laws in Queensland.

“It won’t matter how much money the federal government puts into developing Northern Australia because the Sates control soil and water, so the States need to come to the table and play hard,” he said.

“It will be my job and the Board’s job to bring the States together for Northern Australia.”

Mr Wharton said with a “huge” market in Asia north of the Northern Australia region from WA through to Queensland, infrastructure like roads, ports and rail lines were also critical to success.

He said infrastructure that lent itself to building affordable supply chains meant the CRC’s research focus also needed a holistic approach

That included communications infrastructure which would allow people to run their businesses properly or research into the development of robotics and other technologies to overcome farm labour shortages.

“The Townsville and Darwin ports are just sitting there ready to go so we need to be moving these products out of those ports,” he said.

“Gone are the days where we sent everything back down to Brisbane – that’s the old way and this is the new way.

“Processing is another focus of the CRC’s because we can grow a lot of food and agricultural products but we need innovative processing to achieve the critical mass needed to make industries profitable and we also need to get away from old style processing plants.”