Media Release

The withdrawal of LNP advertisements from North Qld newspapers over legal concerns they break the law is cold comfort for voters who have been deliberately deceived by the LNP’s “a vote for Katter is a vote for Labor” scare campaign – many of whom have already voted.

 "Whilst we welcome this courageous decision by our local Murdoch-owned regional newspapers – which is quite extraordinary given the context of their capital city counterparts’ unashamedly biased moonlighting for the LNP on an unprecedented scale – it is too late for many voters who already believe the lies they have been force fed,” said KAP federal leader and Member for Kennedy Bob Katter today.

“They’re obviously readers of Hitler’s Mein Kampf: ‘If you tell a lie consistently and continuously then people will actually believe it’s the truth, even though it’s a lie’.”

The revelation that NewsCorp’s senior lawyers had torpedoed the final tranche of the LNP’s false “a vote for Katter is a vote for Labor” advertisements, follows yesterday’s announcement by Mr Katter outside the Supreme Court in Brisbane that the KAP had commenced legal action in line with Section 329 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, which prohibits “misleading or deceptive publications” during an election period.

Mr Katter said the KAP had resolved to take its own legal action after the rejection of complaints last week to the Australian Electoral Commission about billboards still in place today throughout the Kennedy electorate, which are emblazoned with the blatant lie that ‘a vote for Katter is a vote for Labor’ – and do not even carry an authorisation.

Mr Katter said the ferocity of the fear and misinformation campaign raised questions about the chief motives behind the attacks on “a little party like ours” given the opinion polls were predicting a landslide for the Liberals.

“This will be the first time ever that Australia will be run by the richest and most upper-class people in Australia,” warned Mr Katter.

“Mr Hockey and Mr Abbott’s electorates take in the most exclusive suburbs in Australia: the people who have taken all the benefits, the commissions and agency fees, from the sale of people’s assets – electricity utilities, railways, Telstra, and even our own homelands, our farms and stations, all sold to foreigners.

“Whilst Labor is finished in this election, the KAP provided the people’s protection. Smash us, and there’s no-one to protect the little bloke, the everyday average Australian family.”
But Mr Katter emphasised that the KAP would continue to “fight like tigers for the little bloke” despite the blistering attacks from a major party that believes it is born to rule.

“Their attitude is, ‘how dare we give preferences’ in one state out of six – which actually helps us get rid of the Greens,” said Mr Katter.

“They seem to think that we must be a rubber stamp for the Liberal Party – which is understandable since they demand, and get, this off their own Members of Parliament.”

Mr Katter said people in North Qld and across Australia who voted for rubber stamps “cannot complain when your country has no secondary industry, no agriculture, and our mining jobs have gone to foreign fly in workers”.

“For the patriots, we will fight on,” he vowed.