‘Malcolm-clone’ Michael McCormack must tap votes reservoirham

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack. Picture: AAP

Barnaby Joyce was unashamedly the Coalition’s biggest spruiker of building dams, and lots of them.

The former deputy prime minister once accused green groups of viewing dams as evil and warned they would “pull down the dams we’ve got” if it was up to them.

In government, Joyce launched repeated attacks on Bill Shorten, lambasting him for failing to support dams.

With the Liberals licking their wounds, Michael McCormack, the man who replaced Joyce, now has the ammunition to “unlock the north” and win key votes in Queensland. The CSIRO-led Northern Australia Water Resources Assessments — a 2½-year project involving more than 100 scientists — outlines a new vision for northern Australia to create the nation’s next “great food bowl” and tap into the booming Asian market.

“Absolutely, we’ll be campaigning on it for sure … we want to make sure that it gets carried forward,” McCormack told The Australian.

The opportunity to run with this report and sell the agricultural benefits of unlocking water sources in northern Australia is a no-brainer for a Deputy Prime Minister trying to stamp his authority, and shed the tag of being a “Malcolm-clone”.

Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan was more direct in his language. The maligned Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility can be tapped to support investment in key water and agriculture infrastructure required to generate more than 15,000 jobs and $5.3 billion in annual economic activity.

Canavan said the $755 million Pinnacles dam, which would support 70,000ha of sugar cane, would be Queensland’s biggest.

“It would deliver enough water in most years to fill Sydney Harbour more than two times and irrigate an area the size of two times the Burdekin and almost 10 times the size of the Ord,” he told The Australian.

While inner-city, left-leaning voters conveniently forget where their water, food and electricity come from, the majority of Australians want cheaper food, cheaper energy and cheaper water bills.

The Coalition must sell its pitch for new dams and clean coal-fired power plants to deliver on the government’s pledge to drive down the cost of living.

With Shorten selling different messages to inner-city Melbourne and north Queensland voters, there is an opportunity for Scott Morrison to attract investment to regional Australia and unlock crucial votes at the next election.