Media Release

Off the back of the Prime Minister’s visit to the Torres Strait last week, Federal Member for Kennedy and KAP Leader Bob Katter has implored the Prime Minister to take on board the major problem affecting First Australians, diabetes, and return to the days of the market garden.

“I was the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs for the best part of a decade.

“When I went north to the Torres Strait, 90% of the food that I ate when I went there, whether it be at a café, a restaurant, at a formal function, was 90% fresh local food – fish, turtle, crayfish, yam, taro, sweet potato, bananas, mangoes, coconuts – but the only one of those foods they have left are the coconuts.

“The restrictions by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on the licencing on fishing has almost completely destroyed the fishing industry and their ability to fish.

“And on the other side, we’ve gone and closed everything down on the basis they say that disease could get into Australia.

“The net result has been that if the First Australians want fresh fruit and vegetables now, they have to buy them from the mainland. But they do not have enough money.

“Their source of income was the cray-fishing industry and the other fishing industries. It is gone. So they have no source of income and they are not allowed to grow their own food.

“That is the issue that we would plead with the Prime Minister to see and to take away with him.

“I recently asked all of the Shire Councillors in a First Australian community about how diabetes is affecting them, and sadly every single one of them had a close relative dying of diabetes.

“That problem was simply not there 25 years ago, but it is now. Something has to be done about it.

“The market gardens must be reopened, and unfortunately now a subsidy will have to be paid to get them going again, because they are not going to naturally start up.

“To take Doomadgee as an example, we used to have a fully operational garden market operated by the people themselves. We had a supervisor that we flew in, who was a highly qualified experienced, hands-on farmer. All the work was done by the locals and we had fresh fruit and vegetables at Doomadgee then.

“But we do not have any fruit and vegetables in Doomadgee now. And the further North you go, the worse it becomes. Something must be done, Prime Minister,” Mr Katter said.