Compiled by Jim O’Rourke, Townsville Bureau

Statement by Katters Australian Party

We are hereby advising the media and the public that a defamation action has been commenced against Senator Canavan.

Senator Canavan stated on a national media programme which aired on 13 October, 2020, with reference to myself:

“he has preferenced a Labor Government over the years…”

This is a proposition continuously promulgated by the Liberal National Party (LNP).

Compulsive liar Matt Canavan up to his neck in a smear campaign, will soon be in court defending defamation action taken by Bob Katter

Whilst undoubtedly politicians lie, these are elements that make this a very “malevolent lie.”

1. “It can be proved to be a lie” since How to Vote cards with preferences must be registered with the Electoral Commission Qld (ECQ).
2. He knows also that it’s a lie since my office sent to him in February this year, How to Vote cards from previous elections along with a warning not to repeat this lie.

For an elected official to continue lying when he knows he is lying should be regarded as the highest of impropriety.

The High Court of Australia in Theophanous v Herald & Weekly Times Ltd, went so far as to state that it is implicit in our Constitution, the right to know and the right to know the truth.

1. This has been most damaging to our small, northern and western based party.

The Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) notorious and continuous opposition to coal, cane farming, and cattle (you will remember the live cattle bans), make the ALP a pariah in northern and western Qld.

And the Senator and his ilk, their lies are most damaging to our party.

1. Whilst it is true,

“that you throw dirt you lose ground”

it is also true that,

“some of it sticks.”

My father and Sir Douglas Logan, World War soldiers, endlessly drummed into me to ‘watch out,’ and Adolf Hitler said, ‘if you tell a lie continuously, constantly and consistently people will believe it is the truth even though it is a lie.’

Later I discovered that that quote is in Mein Kampf.

Detail:

KAP how to vote cards on one side preference Liberals over Labor, on the other side they preference Labor over Liberals.

We are well aware that the LNP Federal Govt. deregulated and destroyed all rural industries.

And it was the LNP that disarmed Australians.

But we let the voters decide, poor as those choices might be.

Final Comments:

This defamation is seriously exacerbated since the Senator must know that just the complete opposite is true.

The LNP in the last Qld election, in their bitter hatred of Pauline Hanson, preferenced Labor over One Nation thereby cheating Hanson’s One Nation out of two seats.

Since Hanson would have never voted in a Palaszczuk-Trad Govt, there is no question that Liberal preferences elected a Labor Govt.

Comment:

It is an extraordinary act of self-immolation, making preferences an issue when your own LNP Party is preferencing the Greens above Labor.

This ensures in my opinion a very real prospect that a Greens-ALP Govt. could be elected.

The Greens raison d’être:- the closure of the coal industry, cane industry, hard-hoofed animals (cattle) and solar energy which closes the aluminium industry.

These are the only industries Qld has got since tourism is “Covided”.

Further, making preferences an issue is ill-advised when your LNP Party’s preferencing of Labor in the last Qld election elected a Labor Govt.

A concluding matter of great importance:

Anyone else who repeats this lie will join the Senator in the courtroom.

So, if your neighbour in the backyard tells you this then please advise us, and your neighbour will join the Senator as a Defendant in this action.

They will be with him in the courts.

Editor:  Matt Canavan as a Northern Development Minister has not turned one sod of soil for five years instead relying on LNP ‘smoke and mirrors’ over new dam construction. He is just another LNP snake oil salesman who has wasted more then $500 million on water investigations that produced nothing for regional Australia.