Media Release

8 JUNE 2017:

KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter was today in the heartland of one of the world’s largest thermal coal reserves to fight for the future of North Qld against political manoeuvering to close down Australia’s coal industry.

“The future of this coastline – particularly Mackay, Townsville and Rockhampton, and all the area behind it from Moranbah and Dysart to Charters Towers and Emerald, whose entire economies are collapsing because of the ridiculous nature of the attacks on coal – hinges on the exploitation of the Galilee Basin, with Adani's $3 billion in exports and $6 billion from other Galilee mines, and 90,000 jobs,” said Mr Katter from Mackay today.

“Yet I sat in Parliament and listened to nine out of nine Australian Labor Party members all stand up and attack coal, then tell us about the silly stuff on roofs that lasts only 15 years and loses 30 per cent unless you clean it every nine days. Not to mention the poor people who can’t afford solar – what, are they supposed to just go jump?”

Mr Katter – who like his son, State Member for Mt Isa Robbie Katter, was a hard-rock miner in his youth – vowed to “not sit back and watch North Queenslanders be spat upon by a political party they’ve supported for generations”.

“The coal mining areas of Australia have given the Labor Party just about every seat, every year, since we started mining coal in this country, and this is the way we get repaid by the ALP – a bunch of absolutely classic bludgerigars. Every single ALP Member of Parliament, State and Federal, should be utterly ashamed of himself or herself for spitting on the people who have given support for generations.”

He also warned that the CFMEU – of which Mr Katter is a paid-up member – would “not continue to take lying down the ALP belting the hell out of the coal industry”.

“Speaking on behalf of the workers, we are sick and tired of being spat upon by a bunch of bludgerigars – and the ALP here is worse than LNP,” he said.

“But the CFMEU won’t keep copping this. They have to have some sort of affiliate relationship with the ALP for self-preservation because the other mob wants to throw us all in jail. But the CFMEU have always fought like tigers for their membership. They’re not just a pathway into a nice cushy Parliament job, like many unions today.”

Mr Katter commended the CFMEU for working with the KAP State MPs to clear a path for the Adani mine as the long-last giant leap forward in the creation of the Galilee Coalfields; and as the gateway to the massive Indian market, where 500 million people were without electricity.

“But for both Governments to give the control of the coalfields to one corporation through a foreign-owned rail line is beyond belief,” he said.

“The Government must build a multi-user rail line, owned by the people, to open Australia’s largest thermal coal reserve, rather than close it down by giving it away to a foreign-owned corporation.”