General News
23 April, 2025
Roads dominate election discussion
THE poor condition of the region’s roads and the fragility and inadequateness of the transport network for trucks carting produce to southern markets dominated the conversation at the Mareeba Chamber of Commerce luncheon for Federal election candidates for Kennedy.
Only two – LNP’s Annette Swaine and the Greens’ Carole Stanford – of the seven candidates vying to topple the “King of Kennedy” Bob Katter turned up at the function to tell the audience why they should vote for change.
Mr Katter has held the seat since 1993, firstly as a member of the Nationals before going independent in 2001, and the veteran politician has no plans to step away any time soon.
In ABC’s Australian Story last week, Mr Katter said he would continue in the role until he was dead – a sentiment echoed by his staff and family in the program.
The luncheon event heard from each candidate about why they should be the next Federal representative, with Ms Swaine stating that the people of Kennedy were struggling, felt “let down” and “neglected”.
“No one is listening to the needs of the electorate in Canberra and we see funds injected into other regions while we miss out,” she said.
“We need to lift Kennedy into the future.”
She said her party would provide a one-off tax break of up to $1200 next year for people earning up to $144,000 and would slice the fuel excise in half for the next 12 months to help families cope with the cost of living.
Ms Stanford outlined some of her party’s policies including putting a freeze on rent increases, paying the HECS debt for those at university and an $800 annual subsidy for all parents to pay for additional costs involved with schooling their children.
She lamented that produce from our region had to go down south to markets before trucked back up again, saying “we should be asking questions about our supply chains and try to change those things for the better” and noting that governments should turn their attention to the rail system which could be a better alternative.
In his address, Mr Katter said he was concerned that inland Australia was “shrinking”, losing five Federal members of Parliament due to “industries simply closing down”.
He also spoke of the freedom he had gained when he left the major parties and became an independent and some of the achievements over the years including saving the live cattle export industry which had been “brought on” by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
“I had backed the Libs three times but the only way to get the market opened was to switch my allegiance on the condition that they (Labor) got rid of Julia Gillard,” he said.
“I knew the price I was going to pay politically – I was committing hari-kari – but within nine days (Kevin) Rudd was in Indonesia, and within 13 days, the market was reopened.”
Mr Katter also spoke of his joy that the final upgrade of the Hann Highway would be completed by the end of next year – something he had been fighting for 15 years – which would take some 18 hours off the round trip to southern markets.
But cattleman Alan Pedersen questioned the value of the Hann being completed when Ootann Road still needed to be upgraded.
“For triple road trains to get from here to the Hann, they have to go through Ootann Road, otherwise they will have to continue to go down the Palmerston (Hwy) and the Bruce (Hwy),” he said.
“Unless Ootann Road is sealed, we can’t get product out of here onto the Hann Highway so it’s an absolute critical piece of road we have to do.”
Mr Katter responded that he now had his “riding instructions” and he would get “stuck into it and take it up with Canberra”.
“It’s pretty futile to get that (Hann) highway done and we can’t use it,” he said.
