Media Release

KAP Leader and Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has said that the Liberal leadership spill which last night saw the instillation of a new Prime Minister was an indication of the feeling of the people and the dire situation facing Australia, and that the new Leader needs to look towards development.

“A people in pain will punish the people in power,” Mr Katter said.

“That’s what happened yesterday and it should be a very salutary message for Malcolm Turnbull.

“Malcolm Turnbull would be more extreme in his views on Government non-intervention than even Paul Keating, the other market fundamentalist.

“But Malcolm is very intelligent. I had a meeting with him last week and there was no doubt in my mind that he is one politician that is acutely aware that Australia is in very desperate peril.

“Coal is well and truly up against the wall and so is iron ore, and that’s all we’ve got.

“Now if Malcolm thinks his free market policies are going to get him out of the hole, well those are the policies that put us in the hole in the first place. Regional Australia has been smashed to pieces by free market policies.

“But a person becomes an entirely different person with the burden of responsibility upon his back. Malcolm must look towards development.

“Development is not building tunnels in Brisbane or overpasses in Melbourne. Development is Government building the railway line into the Galilee coalfields.

“For the agricultural industries and the two giants of grains and sugar, development is ethanol.

“The manufacturing industry can be rescued tomorrow, all he has got to say is that all government cars will be Australian made and all navy ships built in Cairns and Adelaide. That is development,” said Mr Katter.

Mr Katter also said that the Nationals needed to use this opportunity to renegotiate with the Coalition to obtain tangible outcomes for the people of rural and regional Australia.

“Barnaby Joyce has said that the coalition agreement has to be looked at and Minister Joyce has constantly raised our aspirations and our expectations,” Mr Katter said.

“I appreciate his rhetoric, but it sure would be nice if he delivered. I mean, we are dying out there in rural Australia.

“Minister Joyce needs to re-negotiate on the basis of ethanol, which pulls three of our industries out of the quagmire they’re in at the present moment. And with ethanol comes dams and water infrastructure.

“We also need a Reconstruction Board for our farmers, workers and businesses in our rural towns, which costs the government nothing, not a single dollar.

“I think that Barnaby Joyce has hit the nail on the head, the National Party has got the numbers, the Liberal party can’t govern without them.

“So for heaven’s sake Minister Joyce, use your numbers and deliver to us a survival mechanism for rural Australia.”