Media Release

KAP Leader and Member for Kennedy Bob Katter today slammed the National Party’s comments over ABC regional radio cuts as the ultimate hypocrisy, saying that they were the ones in power when almost all of the cutbacks had taken place.
“The voice of the bush is being slowly extinguished, and once we can’t be heard and we can’t be seen, we almost certainly won’t be considered in any decision making,” Mr Katter said.

“Twenty per cent of Australia still lives in regional Australia, but the tyranny of the majority means that the cities get most of the funding.

“Centralising 16 million people in the metropolitan areas is appalling both in terms of living conditions and in cost structures and the fact they need so much money for their infrastructure means the rest of us are left with none.

“Other countries have political parties based on geographic regions, but this again proves again the utter futility of voting for the LNP.

“They hold almost all of the regional seats, but almost all of these cutbacks have come from the LNP Government.

“The National Party have no place complaining about it, they’ve been in power when all regional cut backs have taken place.

“They were in power when centralisation of ownership in the television took place - then we had our own channels, now we don’t.

“So regional television was virtually destroyed by them and now regional radio will be as well.

“Our country newspapers are now almost all run out of the cities.

“And once we can’t be heard and we can’t be seen, the long term reality is that regional Australia will get nothing, we’ll be emasculated in every way,” Mr Katter said.