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.
Benefits
of
Revised Bradfield Scheme
It is envisaged that the Revised Bradfield Scheme will…
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Drought proof in
excess of 15% of the surface
area of Queensland;
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The Office of Northern
Development proposed the closure and capping of Artesian Bores along the Bradfield
canals. Stations not on Bradfield irrigation canals will be able to use water thus saved
for on-station fattening and drought proofing;
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Two meatworks will be built to
cater for increased beef production;
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One paper pulp mill will be built
to process timber farms;
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The Pentland power station will
ultimately be necessitated by an increased power demand with a 50% increase in the
North
Queensland population;
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Four cotton gins
could be
built…two in the Central West and two in the Mid West;
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Increase export earnings of
$2,550 million pa;
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Over 100,000 jobs will be created
(36 jobs for every $1 million in increased earnings);
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Protection of Ingham against the
simultaneous upper and lower flooding, which would cause a projected loss of some 200
lives (SES estimate);
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The building of the phosphate
plants at Duchess and Mount Isa. Fertiliser demand will dramatically increase because of
increased farming. |
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.
The
Battle for the Inland
UNEMPLOYMENT:
Over
1,000,000 Australians cannot find a full-time job…until the 1980s, official
unemployment averaged 3%… since the 1980s, it has averaged 9%. However, real unemployment
hovers close to Depression levels of over 20%.
HOPELESSNESS:
Australia
has the highest youth suicide rate in the world… Australia has one of the lowest
birth rates in the world.
DEBT:
Australia’s
bankruptcy rate is one of highest in the world… until the 1980s it averaged around
3,000 pa. … for the last five years it has averaged around 15,000.
BALANCE of PAYMENTS INCREASES
DEBT:
Debt
increases our annual interest payments: Every month, over $1,500 million goes out of
the country more than comes into the country. If we had this money, every three months we
could build a Bradfield Scheme, air condition every home in rural
Australia, and dig a canal and fill Lake Eyre with sea water.
DEBT REPATRIATION:
The
interest paid on the Federal government debt in 1994 was $3,886 million… in the 1996
year, it was $9,388 million… 20% of our entire tax revenue goes to the banks for
interest and repayments.
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.
Collapse
of the Australian Economy
The facts:
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93% of Australia’s exports
come from mining and agriculture
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Between 1988-1991 there was a 14%
increase in agricultural income and a 25% increase in mining income. Between 1991-1994
there was only a 1.9% increase in agricultural income - and only a 3.6% increase in mining
income
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In 1986 there were 135,700
self-employed farmers in Australia. By 1993 there were only 101,700 self-employed farmers
in Australia… 34,000 farmers have been broken and forced off the land in the past
seven years
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Cattle number in the late 70s hit
33.4 million heads… by 1993, cattle numbers had fallen to only 24.0 million
head
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Sheep number in the late 80s
reached 174 million head… by 1993, sheep numbers had fallen to only 139 million
head
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Wheat production of around 25
million tonnes per annum fell to 13 million tonnes in 1994. |
Whilst Interest Rates & De-regulation of Statutory
Marketing are all contributing factors, drought has always been the Grim Reaper.
BUT…
In sharp contrast, sugar and cotton in Queensland - both
predominantly grown using IRRIGATION - have increased - sugar production from 3.2 million
tonnes in 1986, to 4 million tonnes in 1993; and cotton production from 40 million kg's in
1986, to 104 million kg's in 1993.
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.
The National Water Distribution Scheme
In early 1995 a major breakthrough in the political fight to
get Bradfield moving occurred when Hon. Ernie Bridge OAM, a long-serving minister in the
WA Parliament and former Shadow Minister for the Northwest, met with the Federal Member
for Kennedy, Bob Katter MP, himself also a former senior Minister in the
Queensland government, in Canberra to discuss the formation of a National Water
Development Committee.
The purpose of the politically bipartisan committee that
resulted from this meeting is to co-ordinate a National Water Distribution Scheme that
will include the Bradfield Scheme, the Kimberley-Perth Pipeline, the Daly Scheme in the
NT, and the Clarence River Diversion in northern NSW
These four schemes will produce $5,000 million per year in
direct export earnings for Australia from an outlay of around $7,000 million…
or $460
million per year for the 15 years it will take to build all the schemes.
But the real cost of this programme may be only two thirds
to one half of the projected total cost because the number of people who would be employed
to work on schemes would of course result in a corresponding fall in the number of people
on unemployment benefits. By taking these people off unemployment benefits and giving them
work, the real cost could be as low as only $260 million per year for 15 years…. The
Federal government is now spending $15,000 million a year on dole payments…
and
achieving absolutely nothing in national income or in improving national infrastructure.
In 1994, the Federal government spent nearly $390 million on
‘one-off’ Foreign Affairs items:
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$90 million on the new Foreign
Affairs building in Canberra ($168 million final cost);
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$20 million given to Yasser
Arafat and his PLO;
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$100 million donated to Vietnam;
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$7 million given to the Irish
Prime Minister
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$42 million on the Laos
Friendship Bridge;
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$50 million approximately to the
World Bank. |
In addition:
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The Arts got a special boost in
1994 of $252 million over four years
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Whilst the Goss government in
Queensland found nearly $2,000 million over four years to improve the railway
system around Brisbane and for a ‘playground’ for city dwellers on the South
Bank of the Brisbane River, not one cent has gone into water infra-structure in the
State
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16.5% of Australia’s
workforce is being paid some form of benefit because they cannot find work
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The Federal government is now
spending over $15,000 million per year to pay these people not to work. |
Better surely that we pay them to dig ditches and pour
concrete to take water from where it is not needed and doing damage, to where it is so
desperately needed… to where our nation’s great storehouse of risks…
to where
our cattle and sheep herds are dying… to where our Australian flora and fauna are
dying at the hands of nature’s cruel side.
RETURN TO: INDEX
E-MAIL: Bradfield
Scheme - (bradfield.scheme@fnq.cc)
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