Media Release

AUSTRALIAN Party Federal Leader and Member for Kennedy Bob Katter said Queenslanders must be given the right to destroy flying foxes invading our backyards.

"The non-Government of Queensland is willing to stand back and let diseased flying foxes attack people in their own homes," said Mr Katter following reports of a woman attacked by bats on the balcony of her Brisbane home.

"This gross negligence must stop.

"They know that more than 120 people died of Nipah disease carried from flying foxes on the Malay Peninsula; that more than 700 people in China died from SARS; and that in Qld, six people have contracted Hendra virus and four have died.

"All this is attributed directly and indirectly to bats – such as the deadly lyssavirus (from which two reported human deaths have occurred in Australia) being carried by an estimated 9 per cent of North Qld bats.

"Two of my dozen closest friends in Innisfail have had serious hospitalisation with leptospirosis.

"Only people with a very sick set of values would prevent people from defending themselves against this scourge."

Mr Katter said that in contrast to the extreme green point of view that humans were encroaching on bat habitats, numbers had exploded since European settlement to reach near-plague proportions – especially in inner city suburbs and built-up regional communities – and that as a result too many people were now being attacked.

"One attack is too many – but Queensland Health reports that already this year, 89 people have been bitten or scratched. That’s 89 potential funerals and in that time not a single diseased bat has paid a price."

Mr Katter said the government must stop making excuses in protecting bats and immediately give Queenslanders the right to kill any bat that enters their property or threatens their family.

"And there needs to be an immediate cull in populated areas," he added.

"The government can simply not afford to rely on soft solutions and questionable data when lives are hanging in the balance."