Media Release

The looming threat of a China trade ban on Australian copper ore[1], as reported in the South China Morning Post[2], has prompted Bob Katter – whose Kennedy electorate is one of the biggest copper mining areas in the country – to renew his calls for Australia to ramp up domestic manufacturing and minerals processing to counter a predicted fall in export demand.

The Katter’s Australian Party MP said Australia was highly exposed to these sorts of intimidation tactics because various federal governments, from both sides of the political divide, had allowed the country to fall into a trade dependency with China and in the process had ceased all domestic manufacturing.

“We have no industry left in Australia, but we have two quarries; iron ore and coal,” he said.

“If you’ve got to buy everything from overseas, one third from China, then you can only stop and say that the Federal Government is extremely stupid. Who is running this country? The ALP and LNP have put all our eggs into a nice, easy, little basket called China.

“China is very, very dangerous, but we want good long-term relationships with all countries. If you think by being nice to a bully you will get out of a schoolyard beating, then you are very, very wrong. My experience in life is that you need to stand up to bullies even if they give you a big flogging.

“Now, remember that the people of China are largely good people, many North Queenslanders have Chinese in the family tree, so we want to maintain a good relationship with the Chinese people, but we cannot bow down to and succumb to the pressure from the Chinese Communist Party Dictatorship.”

Mr Katter said there were numerous steps the Federal Government could take immediately to remedy the situation, and in the process create real jobs and industries in Australia.

“All motor-vehicles bought under a government contract should be Australian made,” he said.

“Now that will provide for you a market for our copper and iron ore right here in Australia. I would bet that nearly all the copper wire used in Australia is made in China from copper dug up in Australia. So there’s a good start, produce your own cars and copper wire and you won’t have to worry about China, will you?!

“We’ve got to move back towards self-reliance. We did this after the war with Japan and near invasion of Australia. We got a big wake-up call. We are very, very isolated and at risk. All our resources are in the part of Australia that is not populated. 95 per cent of Australia’s surface area has less than a million people living there. All our coal, iron-ore, copper and water is in this area. If you think that is going to continue then you believe in the Tooth-Fairy. The Government must act and act fast.”
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