Media Release

“Calling Queenslanders foggy? What does our former Deputy PM mean? I guess I’m just lost in the fog up here,” said Bob Katter, KAP Federal Member for Kennedy in response to comments made by former Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer last week.

“Queenslanders sometimes have fog and this particular Queenslander has a lot of fog,” said former Deputy Prime Minister, campaigning alongside Barnaby Joyce at a press conference in Tenterfield last week.

Mr Fischer was referring to Mr Katter and the “Australia NOT for sale “ad which recently caused a national media frenzy.

Mr Katter said, “Think Qld was foggy at State of Origin 1 game a couple of weeks ago? We weren’t too foggy then. Next State of Origin game on 22 June, I think the Southerners will want the scoreboard to be real foggy.”

“But the extraordinary stupidity of making a remark like this when in fact his candidate Joyce is a Queenslander himself, not a NSW man; but like most people in the LNP, it’s all about careers.

“The LNP bloke running for our electorate lived in Brisbane until April but is obviously seeing a career opportunity, hence the move.”

Mr Fischer rearing his head last week reminded Mr Katter of the LNP’s poor track record for farmers,

“Fischer led our agriculture to its most disastrous period in Australian agricultural history.

“He deregulated and took every industry’s right to arbitration away and left them open to attack.

We saw very clearly what Fischer did. He, and the likes of Joyce, were up to their eyeballs; they forced national competition policy upon the State governments, forcing them to remove all their protection. So in one hit we were up against the farmers of the world to give 41% of their income from government (OECD report 2006) and were then exposed to the supermarket giants who hold 90% of the Australian food market and agriculture was massacred.

“I’m not blaming the LNP for the wool with the removal of protection – the ALP can take full responsibility for that one; but the rest you can lay it, whether it was eggs, tobacco or sugar or dairy, you can lay it all at the seat of the LNP.”

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