Media Release

KAP Leader and Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter today reminds former ALP Federal Resources Minister, now Seven Group Holdings executive, director of British gas giant BG Group, and the ex-president of the ACTU, Martin Ferguson, that reserving a portion of Australia’s resources, such as gas, would preserve and create industry and jobs.

Mr Katter’s comments come in light of reports in The Australian newspaper where Mr Ferguson said the push for reserve domestic gas and the current industrial relations laws could set the nation on the road to major decline.

Mr Katter asks the question whether we own the resources of Australia, or whether the foreign corporations own the resources of Australia.

“The Government of Australia gave away, for nothing, mining licences to foreign corporations and they will now gross, according to their own figures, about $26 billion a year.

“We are paying the highest housing prices in the world, the price of electricity in Queensland is soaring, and the cost of domestic gas is skyrocketing; well if you want to get by you better learn to grow your own vegetables.

“The Reserve Resource Policy is aimed at securing Australia’s long-term energy needs by ensuring we have access to domestic gas supplies.

“If we introduce a Reserve Resource Policy for gas consumption we would see a drop in prices for the domestic and industrial market. This would save our dwindling industries,” Mr Katter said.

Mr Ferguson is reported as also taking aim at the industrial relations laws which he says “impair productivity and encourage repeated disruptions to projects”.

In response Mr Katter said, “you would have to go back a couple of thousand years to Jerusalem to find a precedent for Martin Ferguson, who is also a director of British gas giant BG Group, and the ex-president of the ACTU, proclaiming that workers’ income and protections should be lowered.

“If the likes of Ferguson and his foreign corporate masters spent their time tackling the issue of the high value of the dollar, which has crucified every industry in this country, instead of belting the workers of Australia (who produce every single benefit that is bestowed on yourselves today) then your wage problem would not be a problem at all,” Mr Katter said.