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Labor content for crocodiles to keep eating tourists
Member for Hill Shane Knuth has today hit out at the State Government for their lack of urgency towards the growing risk of crocodile attacks and sightings in the Far North, likening it to their apathy on youth crime.
Mr Knuth was responding to a crocodile attack at a boat ramp at Ayton on the Bloomfield River, 60 klms south of Cooktown on Wednesday where a lucky tourist managed to free his leg from the mouth of a large crocodile.
A passing ranger was able to perform immediate first aid and call the rescue helicopter from Cairns. The tourist is reported to be in a stable condition in Cairns Base Hospital.
Mr Knuth said the KAP has submitted their Saferwaterways Bill twice now with the Government and Liberal opposition both voting against changes to the management of crocodiles.
“Our Bill would implement sensible controls on the management of crocodile numbers, including the establishment of a Queensland Crocodile Authority in Cairns, increased ranger numbers, egg harvesting initiatives for indigenous people and a zero tolerance on ANY crocodile in ANY populated beach or waterway.”
Mr Knuth’s renewed calls for better management of crocodiles, follows news this week of a crocodile sighting on a street in Ingham.
“These incidents are on the rise and I am receiving constant feedback from fishermen, water recreational users and Queensland Life Saving on increased crocodile activity on beaches and inland waterways in populated areas.”
Member for Hinchinbrook Nick Dametto said he is sick and tired of the Governments response of putting up a sign to be Croc Wise.
“I guess the Government will put up a sign in the main street of Ingham now,” said Mr Dametto.
“You can bet if there was a 2.5metre crocodile on a street in Brisbane they would call out the army reserves. The Government are again taking regional Queenslander’s for fools and enough is enough.”
Culling of cattle herd and cattle stations on Cape York Peninsula
Part of the depopulation plan by disrupting food supplies
Shoot to kill cattle operations in Cape York must stop now, Member for Hill Shane Knuth said.
Mr Knuth said for years parks and wildlife had been performing shoot-to-kill operations, indiscriminately killing unbranded and branded cattle, often without any, or little notice to surrounding landowners who own most of the cattle.
“The department needs to communicate with landowners, who are rarely notified and often held up by government bureaucracy, sometimes waiting up to 50 days before they can obtain a permit to collect their branded cattle from national parks,” Mr Knuth said.
“Cattle are continually shot before landowners are given permission to enter parks to muster their cattle, which is a huge economic loss to the region.”
He said over the past three years more than 5,000 cattle, which could be worth more than $6m on today’s market, have been shot on orders from the Department of Environment.
“The question is, why are neighbouring properties to Cape York National Parks given only one week’s notice, or no notice before the killing of cattle occurs?” he said.
“And when adequate notice is given, it’s always during the wet season when it is far too difficult and dangerous to muster cattle.
“It is quite obvious that this Government wants to drive pastoralists out of the region, so they can lock it up to meet their environmental agenda.”
“I call on the Minister to fix this long-standing issue, streamline the permit process, instruct the department to give adequate notice and work with landowners to muster valuable cattle, instead of destroying this income stream.”
Sally Witherspoon, who has been involved in the cattle industry on Cape York for more than 50 years, (and still runs cattle on a northern Peninsula sublease) says, that National Parks are putting the final nail in the coffin of the beef industry in North Queensland.
“There is a ridiculous rule that you must contact Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service 40 days before submitting a Permit to Muster application,” Mrs Witherspoon said.
“The application takes time to be assessed and could then be denied for some reason. For example, too late in the season for a muster.
“National Parks should not be purchased unless there are funds to fully fence and maintain the Park.
“They are the worst neighbours one could wish for with little to no weed control, no fences, nobody living on the property, little firefighting capability, and a propensity to shoot cattle.
“Shooting from a helicopter is often not humane and it is distressing to think our cattle are being cruelly “hunted” and maybe left to die a slow death.
“It is very telling that graziers on Cape York Peninsula and the north-eastern coast of Queensland are being forced out of business in the only areas of Queensland that have guaranteed rainfall.
“It is my belief that this is part of a state government drive to disrupt food production. A plan that is also evidenced by the recent slashing of the Queensland Mackerel quota.”#
Editor: The State Labor Party has just set aside $20m to purchase more cattle properties on Cape York. Since its recent $11.5m acquisition of Bramwell Station and Resort, there are few cattle stations left.
The Labor Party is intent on removing all of 15 remaining white pastoralists then turning Cape York Peninsula into a vast, unmanageable slab of impenetrable scrub. This has already occurred over much of the sterilised land area handed to Aborigines without a secure title.
It will become a potential firebomb of nuclear proportion already home to more than one million feral pigs and tens of thousands of wild dogs.
Yet feeble-minded city people keep voting for the ALP eco-fascists not even thinking about where their next beef steak will come from.
Qld Labor continues destruction of food supply by wrecking mackerel fishing industry
Member for Hill Shane Knuth has slammed the Queensland Labor Government and Department of Fisheries on their management of the Spanish Mackerel fishery.
Mr Knuth said this issue had been boiling since the initial meeting of Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Spanish Mackerel Working Group in May, last year.
“The working group was provided a presentation on the results of the 2021 east coast Spanish Mackerel stock assessment by Fisheries Queensland which advised them the draft biomass was estimated to be at 17 per cent of unfished biomass,” Mr Knuth said.
“Twenty per cent triggers the closure of a fishery under the Sustainable Fisheries Strategy and under National Guidelines.”
However, Mr Knuth noted in the departments own 2018 stock assessment of Australian East Coast Spanish Mackerel Predictions of stock status and reference points that annual harvests of around 550t (across all sectors) will build biomass towards the 60 per cent level, consistent with the 2027 management targets set in the Governments Sustainable Fisheries Strategy.
Astonishingly, just 3 years later, the working group were informed that the fishery biomass was 17 per cent, despite commercial harvest averaging 300t annually since 2004, well below the current total annual allowable commercial catch for the species.
“Even adding in 170t annually for recreational fishers, the annual total harvest is still well below the 550t recommended by Fisheries Qld to have a healthy fishery,” said Mr Knuth.
“My point is this, how can a fishery, that was deemed healthy at an estimate of 60 per cent biomass in 2018, with the annual harvest well under the allowable mark of 550t each year since 2004, suddenly just 3 years later completely drop of a cliff to 17per cent?
“It simply doesn’t make any sense.”
Mr Knuth said the assessment model for measuring Biomass was changed in 2018, further adding to fishermens’ anger.
“Either Fisheries Queensland has been telling fishermen the wrong information since 2004 and are responsible for mismanaging the fishery, or the assessment model used to measure biomass is flawed.”
Mr Knuth said he has questioned the Minister in Parliament and he had not addressed the anomaly.
‘The Minister will say that the biomass model has been peer reviewed, but this was not done in conjunction with industry. Fishermen are out on the water constantly and they are telling me that Spanish Mackerel stocks are high, which is a completely different story to the Minister and his department,” he said.
Mr Knuth said the statement by the Minister recently in a media release where he said the Queensland Government has moved to protect fishing jobs and give Queenslanders a say on future management of Spanish mackerel stocks was laughable.
“The working group has met once since last year and have had zero input into the peer review or any other strategy since then, yet suddenly the Minister wants to give the industry a say, after the damage is done?” he said
“Closing the fishery will destroy jobs and affect restaurants, fish and chip shops and people who enjoy battered and crumbed fish throughout North Queensland.
“The Minister and DAF need to come clean, admit they got it wrong and work closely with the industry to get it right, so jobs, businesses and catching a mackerel is not lost.”
MP Shane Knuth tables some startling statistics about Covid vaxx and deaths in Qld Parliament
The LNP has been totally supportive of the Labor Premier and the Labor Party’s entire Covid mandates, enforced vaccinations, dead and injured victims by the thousands, tens of thousands or more lost jobs across education, nursing, public service, police and the private sector.
The Liberal National Party federally and in the state are one of the same. How many more vaxx victims have to die before they will utter a word?
The LNP supports an extension to emergency powers coming up in parliament so the Labor tyrants can again lock us up at will or impose even more restrictions on small business. Coles and Woolworths are exempt.
Shane Knuth from Katters Australia Party is one of a few independents Australia-wide who has taken the vaxx mandates and the vaccine head on. Being a former top-grade rugby league player the Charters Towers lad is good at tackling the corrupt political duopoly whose members are jockeying for positions in the New World Order.
Coles and Aldi stand condemned for not increasing milk price for dairy farmers
Retired National Party federal leader Warren Truss given Australia Day award for screwing the dairy industry
For long-term dairy campaigner and State MP Shane Knuth the 10c per litre milk rise through Woolworths is cautiously welcomed, however he said a 30c per litre increase was needed to save a collapsing industry.
Mr Knuth said dairy farming is disappearing in Queensland and more needs to be done by combined state and federal governments to revitalise and save the industry.
Long-time milk price campaigner Shane Knuth, KAP member for Hill, says farmers need 30 cents litre increase to survive
“In the year 2000 we had 1,500 dairy farms in Queensland. The day I tabled my Fair Milk Mark Bill in 2013 we had 540.
Thanks to both major parties voting down the bill we now have less than 370 dairy farmers left in the state.”
Mr Knuth added he is continually dismayed that Federal and State politicians will march arm in arm with producers at rallies and make bold speeches but do absolutely nothing in presenting legislation or taking action to save the industry.
“If we continue this trend of inaction we will have no dairy farms left in Queensland within the next decade and will be importing all our milk from other states and overseas.”
Mr Knuth added he was proud of his efforts to highlight the plight of Dairy Farmers, submitting two (2) private members bills and continuing to fight for the industry in Queensland;
“I have also put a motion into state parliament calling on all governments to pressure supermarket giants, that a 10c per litre increase be applied to EVERY litre of milk sold in all supermarkets in all milk producing states, with the 10c increase going directly back to the dairy farmer.
This would be a good start in helping to save the dairy industry.”
Croc cull public meeting
To download the flyers click on your selection
phone: 40915861 – email: dairymple@parliament.qld.gov.au
KAP slams Govt croc management review in wake of latest attack, calls for real action
KAP Shane Knuth and Rob Katter – “We do not need a review – we know what the problem is and we demand action.”
The KAP has condemned reports this afternoon that the State Government will review new crocodile management plans following an attack on a snorkeller on Lizard Island yesterday.
The man was treated for minor cuts and abrasions to his head after the reptile, estimated to be up to two metres long, attacked him near Watson Creek Inlet.
ABC reported Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the incident was concerning and that maybe stricter measures were needed, although she’s ruled out culling.
KAP State Member for Dalrymple Shane Knuth said a review was the last thing Queenslanders needed.
“The time for talk is well and truly over; we need real action in the form of a controlled cull now to put a stop to the attacks, which seem to be multiplying by the day,” he said.
“We do not need a review – we know what the problem is and we demand action.”
State Member for Mt Isa Robbie Katter said the latest attack was the final straw.
“Human safety is paramount and the Government has now run out of chances to evade action; we need to activate a controlled cull as soon as possible,” he said.
The latest development comes just hours after reports of a beheaded crocodile near Innisfail, revealing locals may be taking steps to control crocodiles themselves because the Government is failing to act.
“People are saying this was bound to happen and it will continue if the Government doesn’t do something,” Mr Knuth said.
Following a well-supported consultation tour around north Queensland, the KAP will table legislation next month to allow for a controlled cull in populated areas across Queensland.
Under the legislation, Mr Knuth said crocodiles could be culled or relocated to a crocodile farm, and safari hunting and egg collection initiatives could be set up to create jobs for Indigenous rangers.
Crocodiles in plague proportions in North Queensland and KAP is moving laws to reduce numbers
In response to a public outcry, Katters Australia Party is drafting legislation to remove or cull crocodiles in northern waterways after a spate of savage attacks on tourists and residents.
The recent death of a spearfisherman and the mauling of a man at Innisfail by crocodiles prompted a series of public meetings called by the Member for Dalrymple Shane Knuth to gauge public support for crocodile removal, culling, egg collection and safari hunting.
Meetings were held last week at Mareeba, Innisfail and Port Douglas.
At the Mareeba meeting Mr Knuth said the attacks had been given international media coverage and tourists were now cancelling visits to the Far North because they were frightened of being attacked by a salt water crocodile.
Former deputy Mayor of Mareeba Shire, Evan McGrath spoke of crocodiles close to the town and how farmers had been menaced by them when checking their water pumps in creeks and channels.
He said crocodiles had been seen in irrigation channels and the Barron River near his farm. “Their numbers are out of control in areas where crocodiles have never been seen before.”
Crocs eat crocs or humans in the Far North. KAP is drafting legislation to reduce the runaway numbers of dangerous crocodiles in North Queensland
“Enough is enough,” Mr Knuth told a supportive audience of more than 100 residents.
“We have to bring the numbers back under control. Over the past 40 years since croc shooting finished the numbers have exploded and crocs no longer fear man and they have become cheeky and not afraid to attack people or domestic animals.”
A three metre long photo backdrop of a crocodile with a kelpie in its mouth reminded the audience of the audacity and savagery of a crocodile eating a pet dog near Innisfail two weeks ago, greatly upsetting the dog’s young owner.
Supporting the KAP legislation was the Chairman of Cape York Peninsula Land Council Richie Ahmat who suggested a truck load of large crocs should be taken from a local crocodile farm and dropped into the Brisbane River.
“Then we would see some action,” Mr Ahmat quipped.
Former Gulf area cattle station manager Jack Fraser told the meeting the excessive number of crocs in the vast Lower Gulf district were out of hand and should be culled as a matter of urgency.
He said several years ago a large crocodile on a cattle station was found dead on a riverbank. It was cut open to reveal 60 plastic cattle ear tags in its stomach.
“Sixty ear tags represents a loss to the station of about $60,000 worth of stock on today’s market,” Mr Fraser said.
Member for Kennedy Bob Katter received thunderous applause when he stated the obvious: “The Brisbane Government does not care a less about North Queenslanders and it is time we looked after our own problems.
“Home rule is across the world and like Brexit, North Queensland must now take a stance,” referring to a new State of North Queensland.
Member for Mt Isa Robbie Katter said he would present a bill to State Parliament in the May sittings to address runaway crocodile numbers that were of grave danger to the public.
He alluded to making unchecked crocodile attacks a precursor to blocking the May budget should the Labor Government not support his bill.
Meanwhile the Independent Member for Cook, Billy Gordon, did not attend either the Mareeba or Port Douglas meetings held in his electorate.
On his Facebook page after the meetings Mr Gordon claimed he would not be supporting the crocodile removal legislation because he had not been invited to either the Mareeba or Port Douglas meetings.
“The needs of my electorate are quite substantive, the areas of health, education, telecommunications….and tourism are of primary concern to me,” the post said.
“It’s on these issues that hard- nosed negotiations should be had on.
“As a matter of public record I have not been invited to or included in meetings in both Mareeba and Port Douglas to advocate for culling of crocs.”
A KAP spokesman said today Mr Gordon’s office was contacted early on Tuesday morning by staff inviting him to the meeting.
“On Wednesday morning his office put in an apology telling us they were unsure if Mr Gordon would attend,” the spokesman said.
“A meeting flyer was emailed to his office. KAP contacted his staff who said they were unable to send a representative to the meeting.
“KAP staff also left a message on his phone,” the spokesman said.
Mr Gordon is believed to be in Melbourne and was unable to be contacted for comment.
At the Mareeba forum, local Labor Party stalwart Duncan McInnes said most Aboriginal communities and Traditional Owners he had spoken to supported the proposed legislation.
New state of North Queensland here we come
No adequate political representation for the Far North after ECQ and ALP gerrymandered northern seats to Brisbane. Consequently the new State of North Queensland is in the making
The Electoral Commission of Queensland, a Brisbane-based bureaucracy headed by H W H Botting has long defended itself against corruption allegations and again has come into the spotlight after a State electoral redistribution moved several key northern seats to Brisbane.
The Labor orientated ECQ cries independent but long suffering voters outside of the south east corner of the State have been crapped all over by its ALP and LNP driven agenda for decades.
KAP Member for Dalrymple Shane Knuth
Released today, the ECQ has engineered a gerrymander of monumental proportions removing Katters Australia Party Shane Knuth’s seat of Dalrymple stretching from Atherton in the north to the southern mining town of Moranbah in the Coalfields.
The last time the effective and independent member Rosa Lee Long threatened the status quo of the LNP and ALP, her seat of Tablelands was abolished by the ECQ in 2009.
Far North people are sick and tired of being the political football for the LNP and the ALP. Cairns News has no doubt many thousands of voters who have depended on Shane Knuth for his astute representation will protest to the ECQ during the public comment period.
Several contributors to Cairns News have already suggested that the entire population of the Far North refuse to vote at the next State election.
The people should take a line on the map north of the Tropic of Capricorn and tell the south east corner Labor and Liberal politicians and their public servants to go to hell – the north is creating its own state, we don’t need you, one contributor said.
The Mt Isa electorate will now take in Charters Towers in a ploy to spread its highly effective member Robbie Katter wafer thin across an electorate nearly twice the size of Victoria.
Robbie Katter says the re-mapping of the boundaries is another blow for rural representation.
He has constantly pushed against further expansion to rural seats and had hoped for more adequate representation in regional areas.
“The major parties have got what they wanted, in particular the ALP,” he said.
“Adequate representation means that each person has the opportunity to meet and shake hands with their local member.”
“It’s a shame the new seats being created are closer to metropolitan areas, not in western areas where it’s already difficult for the local member to get around their massive electorates.”
Mr Katter said the proposed changes meant that the Mount Isa electorate will lose Diamantina and Winton Shire boundaries, of less than 2,000 people combined, while taking in the Charters Towers Regional Council, with a population in excess of about 12,000 people.
“I’m very concerned that we’ll continue to see people with no idea what it’s like to live out west, making decisions about how we use our land and water.”
“That’s a nett gain of approximately 10,000 people for the local member to represent.”
“The people of these smaller rural towns, that already struggling, need more representation, not less.”
“We need to make sure that everything is being done to ensure adequate representation in rural and regional areas.”
Mr Katter was disappointed the rural areas would miss out once again.
“The major parties have got what they wanted which is less representation in regional areas,” he said.
“It’s another example of rural areas being overlooked.”
“With less representation in the bush we’ll continue to see policies focussed on cities.”
Wilmar Sugar and the LNP rip up canegrowers contracts
KAP Member for Dalrymple Shane Knuth says LNP removed safety net from his bill to protect cane growers
Singapore-owned Wilmar Sugar refuses to pay cane growers fair price.
Thanks to the Liberal National Party cane farmers cannot go to arbitration because the LNP removed the clause from Shane Knuth’s bill.
19 February 2017: KAP Federal Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter and State Member for Dalrymple, Shane Knuth MP today, in the Burdekin town of Ayr, attended a meeting with cane farmers to end the sugar marketing stalemate with Singaporean based company Wilmar.
In 2015 Mr Knuth introduced into the QLD Parliament the Sugar Industry (Real Choice in Marketing) Amendment Act 2015 giving an estimated 4,500 cane growing families choice in who they market with – the Bill passed with the support of the LNP and Independent Member for Cook. It was the second KAP Private Members Bill to become legislation and came within 24 hours of passing the ethanol mandate.
“The outcome of the meeting today still does not give clarity because there is no manoeuvre by the Federal Government to introduce a Code of Conduct,” Mr Knuth said.
“The numbers in the QLD Parliament have not been secured by the LNP, as yet, to get any amendments to the sugar marketing legislation. But as I did in the past when we drafted this legislation – working with the LNP and Canegrowers – we will be doing the same to ensure effective changes can take place,” Mr Knuth pledged.
Mr Katter whose electorate of Kennedy is highly reliant on sugar, was critical of the LNP for removing the final arbitration from the KAP legislation.
“The State representatives who were there today – we are only in this hole, without any cane supply agreements (no contracts between farmers and millers), because the LNP took out the clauses for final arbitration – where the referees decision is final. That was in there and the LNP took it out. We didn’t have the numbers without the LNP so it had to go through QLD Parliament without that clause,” Mr Katter said.
“With all of the QLD State LNP seats now in serious doubt and vulnerable to attacks from KAP and PHON, we might be able to get the QLD State LNP more scared of us than their corporate masters.
LNP Federal Member George Christensen will cross the floor of parliament if the LNP does not help cane growers in their battle with foreign-owned Wilmar sugar
“George Christensen has crossed the floor on ethanol. His crossing the floor on ethanol was an act of very great courage and I think he has played a key role in convincing the Feds to stop them from intervening and overturning the sugar marketing legislation.
“The LNP today says ‘we believe in a competitive market and when it doesn’t work we intervene’. Fancy saying that when they (the LNP) introduced the deregulation.
“Statements about ‘we believe in competition setting the market price’. What an appalling statement! Do you believe the market sets the price of milk with only two buyers in there? Or the price of apples, bananas, oranges or sugar?
“The two giant supermarket chains set the market price. Sugar has a 400% mark-up on the price for refined sugar that the industry gets paid.
“Our second underlying problem is the world sugar market price is set by Brazil and they have over the last 16-17 years received $420 a tonne, and I doubt whether we have got $360 a tonne. We can’t survive on $360 a tonne average price.
“George Christensen no doubt was instrumental in getting the Deputy Prime Minister to stop any intervention from Canberra to overturn the Sugar Marketing legislation. Farmers and every worker in Australia should be entitled to arbitration. Thanks to KAP for introducing the legislation, at least one industry now has arbitration.
“We thank the Deputy Prime Minister for listening to George Christensen on this issue,” Mr Katter ended.
Cairns News 