Speaking at a Forth vegetable farm on Saturday as it poured rain, Bill Shorten said he would spend $100 million to fund the third tranche of the state’s irrigation scheme.
Since 2010, Tasmanian Irrigation has modernised and built on the inter-connectivity of the state’s irrigation networks over several projects in the first and second tranches.
Mr Shorten said that despite Tasmania making up just one per cent of the country’s landmass, the state received 13 per cent of Australia’s annual rainfall.
‘What that means is that we’re not capturing all the water which comes during the rain, and not using it for irrigation’, Mr Shorten said.
How does Shorten expect to ‘capture’ water without dams?
Where is the ‘dam plan’ in his infrastructure policy?
‘Tasmanian ag at the moment is about $1.5 billion dollars’.
‘But in the next 20 years if… we put in the airport links to go to Asia, and we get the irrigation going, it’s going to be a $10 billion plus industry’.
Flying vegetables to Asia? That will blow out the ‘carbon’ emissions in his ‘50% Renewables’ policy, which means higher electricity charges, taxes on agriculture and taxes on petrol.
Source: The Examiner