Media Release

Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has slammed the process that saw the new Coalition Agreement reached in just two hours, saying the National Party had once again sold out rural and regional Australia in the process.

“The National Party rolled over in two hours. We’re deeply, deeply, disappointed,” Mr Katter said.

“Minister Joyce raised our expectations, he made a very strong statement that they weren’t going to just walk into a Coalition Agreement and yet two hours later they had a Coalition, but with virtually nothing to show for it.

“The last time we had a Country Party and Doug Anthony was leader, negotiations went on for two weeks and it was very doubtful at the end whether there was going to be a Coalition, because the Country Party were quite happy to sit as a minority government if they did not get what they needed for rural Australia.

“In the 2010 Hung Parliament negotiations I put my 20 points out to the media and said I want to see how many ticks both sides get. That also took two weeks, but this process took two hours.

“The Nationals have the balance of power in the House of Representatives, the Liberals simply cannot govern without them. Yet they don’t use that power.

“Because the truth is that their jobs are more important to them than the survival of rural Australia.

“And if there is an oppressed class of people in Australia, it is rural Australia. Our children are leaving, our towns are closing down, our industries are closing down.

“People are doing away with themselves on a horrific scale. Our First Australian people are dying in droves of diabetes and malnutrition.

“Farmers are being foreclosed on at a rate of nearly one in every five days, whether it’s cattle or sugar cane or grain. And the dairy industry is well and truly gone.

“A Reconstruction Board is sitting there as the answer. The Government can borrow money at 2% and loan it back at 2%, taking over the bad debt. That is what Australian Governments have done for a hundred years in this country, but in the year of our Lord 2015 they will not do it.

“If you introduce ethanol, if you give Cairns and Adelaide their boat building, if you say that all Government cars will be Australian made, then you rescue regional Australia as well as the manufacturing industry.

“Yet the Nationals did not try to achieve any of these things.

“Some say they they get more being inside the tent than being outside it. Well I say that while they’ve been inside the tent we’ve seen 63% of the wool industry gone, 23% of the cattle industry gone, 31% of the dairy industry gone and 17% of the sugar industry gone.

“So that’s a wonderful record for them isn’t it, they’ve got a real lot out of being in the tent,” Mr Katter said.