Popular and dynamic Katters Australian Party Member for Hill, Shane Knuth, the bloke who orchestrated the first dumping of the national Covid mandate in the Queensland Parliament could lose his electorate under a politicised electoral redistribution.
From Atherton to Tully voters would potentially be abandoned after the LNP recommended Atherton, Dimbulah, Ravenshoe, Babinda, Innisfail and Tully be added to other electorates, potentially giving the LNP another seat in Brisbane.
This is now the third time the Liberal National Party has tried to get rid of Mr Knuth due to his effectiveness in dealing with major public concerns such as crocodile removals, abortion, ocean fishing quotas, tackling dodgy speed cameras, national parks cattle shooting, wind turbines, getting road upgrades including a new road access from Tablelands to Cairns, preventing the LNP from closing any more rail networks, ad infinitum, all being issues the LNP refuses to adequately administer.
These concerns generally are in the National Party domain but the alleged farmer’s party missed the boat after Joh Bjelke Petersen left government in 1987 and now their members really are Liberals wearing Akubras.
Shane Knuth and KAP helped organise the well-attended March for Freedom rally in Townsville at the weekend waving the Australian flag in deference to the News Ltd campaign naming marchers and flag wavers as un-Australian.
KAP since its inception in 2012 has been recognised as the only real Opposition in the Queensland Parliament.
The independent Queensland Redistribution Commission (QRC) is just an offshoot of the extremely partisan Queensland Electoral Commission allowing Labor Premier Palaszczuk to give the electoral roll to China some years ago.
The National’s Fiona Simpson was the only member of the Opposition to kick up a fuss about handing over the roll at the time. Last week she was the first LNP member to complain about recent March for Australia rallies.
The QRC was expected to do the bidding of LNP or Labor’s preferred electoral boundaries as it has done at every other boundary realignment.
KAP could benefit from a redistribution if the QRC breaks up Hill by spilling voters from this KAP stronghold into adjoining electorates which would tip the scales to elect additional KAP members.
The notion of adding more voters and more area to the adjoining electorate of Traeger based on Mt Isa was ” ridiculous” according to sitting member Robbie Katter who said it was nearly impossible to cover the vast area of the electorate now, without adding more distance to travel.
The dilemma for Mr Knuth is which seat to challenge at the next election? He could easily take the adjoining, marginal seat of Cook held by the LNP which was won last election with KAP preferences, provided the capable and popular, former KAP candidate Duane Amos decides not challenge member David Kempton.
The LNP as usual has shot itself in the foot by calling for the removal of Hill. In three years time at the next state election, long-suffering Far Northern voters will have had enough of no money to fix a pothole or getting a band-aid at the hospital.
The LNP had their chance to can Labor’s folly of an unaffordable Olympic Games, however decided to continue with long-term siphoning of North Queensland-generated income into the bottomless South East corner pit.
Meanwhile KAP leader Robbie Katter ridiculed the LNP for again trying to unseat Shane Knuth by proposing to make the South East corner even bigger by removing a seat in North Queensland.
“Queenslanders outside of Brisbane are already strangled by the one size fits all approach from Brisbane, so expanding the number of seats down there will only further dilute the voice of the rest of the state,” he said.
“It really defies logic that with more than half of their 53 seats being from outside the Brisbane Bubble, they’d suggest denying rural Queensland of a voice in parliament,” the KAP Leader said.
