The KAP today joined forces with a couple of colourful personalities to send a serious message to voters desperate for some truth in what is arguably the dirtiest election campaign in Australian history.
KAP Federal President, Member for Mount Isa Rob Katter, joined KAP Qld Leader and Member for Condamine, Ray Hopper, and Member for Dalrymple, Shane Knuth, to illustrate the KAP’s major party preference flows with glasses of milk signifying the percentage of seats in which the ALP or LNP were favoured over the other.
The red milk glass – about one-third full – demonstrated the percentage of Senate seats in which the KAP preferenced the ALP ahead of the LNP; whilst the blue milk glass – about two thirds full – showed where KAP gave the LNP the jump on the ALP.
Mr Katter said the party was forced to resort to such stunts to convey a message that was failing to cut through the personality-focussed election campaign, dubbed arguably the most dishonest in Australian history.
“It’s the sort of dirty politics which contributes to a record one-in-four Australians refusing to be forced to choose between the ALP/LNP duocracy that believes it’s born to rule,” said Mr Katter.
“Of course we all know the major parties have done their own preference deals with each other – such as the LNP preferencing Labor – because it’s in their best interests for Australia to be ruled by the duocracy. However history has shown that our outdated two-party system of government has proved in the worst interests of Australia and its people.”
Mr Hopper said the KAP had negotiated preference agreements with a clear focus: “To put our candidates in the best position to win seats in Parliament so we can be the people’s watchdog of our corporate-controlled major party governments – and get rid of the Greens puppeteers holding our country to ransom”.
But the major parties did not deserve anything from the KAP, said Mr Hopper – and the preference agreements were designed to do exactly that; to give them nothing but rather take seats away from them.
“The major parties are just different dogs with the same fleas – or different bananas in the same skin, as the case may be,” said Mr Hopper. “So we are effectively giving neither anything – because we are in fact poised to take seats from the ALP and LNP and become the third force in Australian politics.”
Mr Katter noted that whilst government is formed on the floor of the House of Representatives, the KAP’s strong showing in the 2010 Qld election effectively handed the LNP about a dozen seats because the KAP cannibalised the ALP vote.
“So it’s crucial that Australians do not hand complete control of both the House and the Senate to any major party to rubber stamp any decision they like – nor keep the Greens calling the tune. As such, the KAP negotiated preferences that put our candidates in pole position to be the people’s voice in Parliament against the ALP-LNP ‘corporation’ that’s destroyed industry and opportunity in Australia and taken voters for granted.”
The KAP’s finalised preference agreements, being made on a candidate-by-candidate basis in line with the party’s core values and principles, are near completion and will be declared in full in due course.
