Now that Easter and Anzac Day are gone, the election campaign moves into full swing with just three weeks to go before polling day on Saturday May 16.
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Labor have lobbed an interesting grenade into the campaign with its proposal to replace the $5 billion North Australia Infrastructure Fund with a new promise of $1.5 billion of funding towards pipelines to unlock gas resources in the Northern Territory and inland Queensland.
The obvious point is that there is a shortfall of $3.5 billion but given that the NAIF has only approved a small fraction of its allocated resources since its creation in 2016 this may be a better trade-off than it sounds.
The NAIF was created as an action from the Tony Abbott government's 2015 white paper on developing northern Australia but potential projects have been mired in a slow moving approval process.
Until early this year the only project to get under way was a $16.8 million investment in logistical services in the isolated West Australian community of Onslow.
The Auditor-General has been critical of the fund, noting a lack of transparency around decisions while saying its remuneration practices were inconsistent with the public sector.
Labor is proposing a Northern Australia Development Fund to work with private financiers, investors and Infrastructure Australia to provide a financing facility to identify and support projects of national economic significance in Australia's north.
Labor is earmarking up to $1.5 billion for proposed gas pipelines across Queensland's Galilee and Bowen basins while another line connecting the Northern Territory Beetaloo basin to Darwin and across to the east coast.
This latter pipeline is where it could get interesting for North West Queensland with Jemena already having built a pipeline linking Tennant Creek and Mount Isa and examining the feasibility of another to link Mount Isa with the east coast via the Galilee Basin fields. Government support could be what gets this pipe over the line - DB
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All election comment in this edition is approved by North West Star editor Derek Barry, 112 Camooweal St, Mount Isa Qld 4825.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
