Katter’s Navy: Bob fires up over border

BOB Katter says Australia needs 100 offshore patrol boats capable of launching missiles to properly protect her borders.

The Kennedy MP has slammed the Federal Government for focusing on internal quibbling instead of the sovereignty of the Queensland coast.

His comments come after a foreign fishing vessel believed to be carrying 27 people ran aground in a river mouth in the Daintree Rainforest, with more than a dozen still on the run last night.

“The Government is dropping the ball on the one good thing they had going for them,” he said.

“There’s been no boat people in four years.

“But there is just no way that they are adequately patrolling the coastline.”

Mr Katter said Australia could not afford both a navy and a coast guard, especially alongside a suite of government departments like the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, police and customs.

“There should be coast guard vessels that cover all of those services,” he said. “We need to make sure they have drone and missile capacity.

“So if we move into a war situation, those 100 patrol boats can become missile platforms.”

Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said he was waiting for Border Force to reveal the nature of the illegal arrivals at Daintree.

“I understand they could be Indonesian,” he said. “It seems more like an accident than good planning.

“They landed right in the middle of the Daintree Rainforest.

“You couldn’t find a more inhospitable place to land.”

Mr Entsch said investigators were assessing whether the boat was running an illegal beche-de-mer fishing operation when it ran aground.