Bill Shorten has announce that if elected, the Labor Party will replace the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) with a new fund aimed at building nationally important infrastructure projects across Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Labor’s Northern Australia Development Fund will provide a financing facility and work with Infrastructure Australia to identify and support projects of national economic significance – such as gas pipelines – in Australia’s north.
$1.5 billion will be set aside to unlock gas supply in Queensland’s Galilee and Bowen basins and connect the Beetaloo to Darwin and the east coast.
Mr. Shorten said this project would support Darwin as a manufacturing and gas export powerhouse, increase supply to Queensland and the eastern seaboard and put downward pressure on prices for gas users.
Labor will also allocate $1 billion of the development fund to tourism projects in the north, appoint First Nation’s people to the new board and establish a memorandum of understanding with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Energy Security Modernisation Fund.
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