US envoy promotes northern potential

The acting United States Ambassador to Australia, James Carouso, says there is enormous scope for increased American investment in northern Australia, including in the Broome and Ord River regions.

He described Broome as a tremendous tourist location, and was optimistic that the Ord River would fulfil its promise as a great source of foodstuffs.

“There sure is a lot of water there, and usually where there is water there’s potential for doing something agricultural,” Mr Carouso said.

“My understanding is there’s a Chinese investment group that wants to develop a huge prawning facility up there – a $1.4 billion investment. So if that’s the case, how about other fish, other protein? How about using water in the Ord to develop fruit and vegetable plantations that can supply not only the southern part of Australia, especially in winter, but all over the world?”

He said huge, ambitious projects, such as the iron ore development of the Pilbara and the construction of the Gorgon LNG operation on Barrow Island, were in Western Australia’s DNA.

“I see no reason not to help find the next big project,” Mr Carouso said.

A Wall Street investment banker before joining the US diplomatic service in 1995, Mr Carouso was speaking during a visit to Perth. He recently took a group of senior executives from American firms based in Sydney and Melbourne, such as General Electric and Bechtel, on a tour of the Northern Territory to assess potential for future investment.

“Most of the south-east of Australia doesn’t think about the north very much,” Mr Carouso said.

“So just bringing these folks up there and say ‘wow, there is potential here’, was significant."

He acknowledged that the small population and limited workforce in the north had put a brake on some proposed developments, but suggested this could be overcome in the future with breakthroughs in the use of automation.

“I see this as an opportunity for US investors because our comparative advantage is we have high tech, we automate a lot of things, so a lack of labour is not a problem,” Mr Carouso said.

He also noted there were 8,000 workers in Darwin employed on the construction of the Ichthys LNG project and that, as it neared completion, they were ready to do the next project in the region, if called upon.