Katter’s on road to his stated goals

KENNEDY MP Bob Katter rates a two-lane highway upgrade between Charters Towers and Richmond as his biggest win in the year since the federal election.

Grants secured for the Big Kennedy and Kidston renewable energy projects made the cut alongside a swag of new aged care beds in his electorate, including a 141-bed facility at Edmonton, 40 extra beds at Warrina at Innisfail and 20 for Tully.

“With each bed worth some $65,000 annually to the Far North Queensland economy, that’s tens of millions of dollars that increases every year, forever,” he said.

Mr Katter stormed home last July with 61.1 per cent of the vote after preferences and an 8.9 per cent swing over the Coalition’s Jonathan Pavetto.

His repeated calls for a “third force” of independent politicians after Senator Cory Bernardi defected from the Liberal Party have so far not I will lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Premier.

“She can remove the crocs now or she can choose to go chasing the cancerous ‘gangreen’ vote in Brisbane whilst we get torn to pieces.”

Mr Katter said not a cent had been spent in North Queensland under the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and the $2 billion National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility except on “looking into its”.

He considered the lack of community halls at Edmonton and Gordonvale a failure with “even the most modest of aspirations by the RSL” falling on deaf ears.

Mr Katter vowed to keep fighting for a tunnel from the inland to coastal ports Cairns and Mourilyan “particularly for the Yarrabah people’s ambitions of having the South Pacific’s deepwater port just off their coastline”.

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