Turnbull and Joyce share water love

Mr Turnbull said the Coalition - through the Agricultural and Northern Development White Papers released last year - had committed $5 billion to a Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund and another $500 million for a water infrastructure fund.

He said the government was now considering a series of projects, to underpin that spending.

“Barnaby and I are absolutely of the same mind; we need to use the massive water resource of Australia better,” he said.

“We need to use it to grow more food and grow more fibre for those markets that, at the same time, due to the really great advocacy and negotiating skills of Andrew Robb, have been opened up.”

Mr Turnbull referred to the Korean, China and Japan Free Trade Agreements and the Trans Pacific Partnership as examples of the now retired Trade Minister’s achievements.

“That deal with China is the best trade deal China has done with any other country,” he said.

“It is the best bar none and it has opened up enormous opportunities right across the board particularly for Australian agriculture.

“Not just for agriculture but services as well and there’s the Trans Pacific Partnership which is a similar big trade deal.”

Mr Turnbull made the comments while sharing time on the road with the new Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader, in Queensland this week.

He said the road-trip wasn’t like the Hollywood movie ‘Thelma and Louise’ but the two leaders did use the experience to help foster deeper understandings about key policy priorities, following Mr Joyce’s promotion last week.

“We have many passions in common; one of them is good prices for graziers and another one is water,” said Mr Turnbull - a self-confessed cattle and sheep producer.

“Water is the source of all life and it is the source of industry and it’s the source of agriculture and it’s the source of strong economic growth.

“Most of our water is in Northern Australia but very little of our infrastructure - in other words not enough dams, pipelines and irrigation systems.”

The Coalition leaders were joined in Queensland by their new Assistant Ministers; Queensland Nationals MP Keith Pitt, assisting the Deputy Prime Minister and Queensland Liberal Senator James McGrath, assisting the Prime Minister.

The tour saw them visit Townsville, Rockhampton and a farm in Bundaberg while other local Queensland MPs and Major Projects Minister Paul Fletcher also joined the action.

Mr Turnbull said soft commodities were in “the highest demand” and Mr Joyce “responsibly assures me” beef prices and various other commodity prices are doubling.

“We have this phenomenal opportunity - before too long - most of the world's middle class will be living in East Asia, right at our door stop,” he said.

“We have the ability to service those markets and we are doing so already.

“That is why we are seeing such strong growth - that is why so many farmers are smiling, particularly when they get some rain as well.

“What we are seeing is better prices and better opportunities but we need the infrastructure.”

Mr Turnbull said as a former Water Minister he loved nothing more than “pipelines and dams - but they've got to stack up”.

“With these projects we will look at them - in a rigorous economic manner,” he said.

“When a piece of infrastructure affects property values as widely as a dam would or water infrastructure would, that is something that should be taken into account; just as you would with a new light rail line or railway line.

“You have got to look at this infrastructure in a holistic way, look at all of the value it is creating, not all of it can be measured but much of it can, that has got to be taken into account as you assess the economic viability.”