DAM OR BE DAMNED!!!
November 3, 2022
Mr Katter outlines how water and irrigation can create prosperity in inland Australia. Photos taken by Scott Radford Chisholm
In my Parliamentary office, I sit under a photo of Black Jack McEwen and Red Ted Theodore. McEwen said the most important thing in Govt. is getting it right. Theodore epitomised getting it right. John Anderson is a likeable bloke, written many good yarns but his “Spotlight on Dams” TB. 16 July 22 exemplifies the same lamentable journalism manifest in his “synapses snap” when writing a glowing tribute to a Qld. police officer who was in charge of cattle thieving. If that sentence has a double meaning, that is, what is intended.
Six heartbroken familys – their loved ones – murdered or murder suicides. I don’t know Ewen Jones. He presided at a Cowboys dinner letting us know that he and old ‘so and so’ were “old school tie” buddys from a ‘Rah Rah’ (R. Union) school.
We commoners were gently reminded that we’d gone to R. League Schools. At my school, Mt Carmel, ‘History’ and ‘Logic’ were compulsory.
Now, these comments are not “ad hominem” they are at the heartland of this debate. Because the real question here is who do you follow? “John Crew Bradfield” and “Leo Hielscher”? Or do you follow Mr Anderson and the exponents Mr Anderson has put before us?
Dr J.C. Bradfield built the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Story Bridge in Bris, Sydney’s water supply, the Univ. of Qld, Sydney’s Underground Rail System (the latter winning, that year, the “World Prize for Engineering”).
Sir Leo Hielscher who with Bjelke-Petersen gave Qld its Economic miracle: - Coal, Aluminium, Nickel, Tourism. Leo at 95 is still working to see “Bradfield” happen. I was with he and his engineer last month. Qld. Premier Peter Beattie, PM Malcolm Fraser, Dep. PM Doug Anthony, PM Kevin Rudd all are on record backing Bradfield. You can follow them or you can follow Mr Jones, Messer’s Lindsay and Lindsay and Townsville Enterprise. To be fair, Mr Jones in his proposal for weirs on the Upper Burdekin and the Flinders Rivers is ‘spot on’. With the two weeks in which I had the balance of power, I secured $28m for what will be the first of two weirs above Charters Towers and $185m for Thread Irrigation, Ballot Farms at Hughenden. This was 4 ½ years ago. Why no action?
Because Fed Govts. have spinelessly bowed to the anti development Qld Govt.
As a published historian I am entitled to observe that the current Qld Govt is easily the worst in Qld history thanks to its euthanasia, abortion and scorn for motherhood; we Qld’ers are now a ‘vanishing race’.
They’ve quadrupled the price of electricity and sold Qld Rail, eliminating the jobs - sacking 14,000 railwaymen, 2,300 electricity workers (following reregulation), and more recently 6,000 taxi drivers. They've committed us to a ‘Nero like’ Olympic games which cost China $29,000m (Qld’s annual budget is only $54,000m). $7,000m on a Taj Mahal for themselves and Pleasure Domes along the Bris. River and 33km of tunnels. NQld’s got none.
Qld’s Govt gave all of the Flinders River Water allocations to two corporates, Stanbroke and AACo (foreign owned). The locals, we Nth Qld’ers, effectively got nothing. The Great Theodore Labor and B-Peterson Country Party Govts took the land off the rich and the corporates (built the sinews of industry) and “gave it to the people”. This Qld Govt does the opposite.
The Qld Govt. claims it pioneers exports. It does. It exports jobs in coal mining and power stations to solar factorys in China. HIPCo - Hughenden's ballot irrig farm proposal extended to C-curry, Julia Ck, Richmond will put 100,000 residents into the Midwest, where only 9,000 people now live.
Before 'balloted farm' irrigation at Emerald, Griffith (NSW) and Mareeba each had a pop. under 1,000 people. With “owner occupier” “balloted” irrigation farms each town grew to a pop of over 20,000.
Mr Jones quite rightly criticises the ‘extraordinary’ proposal to “Raise B-kin Falls Dam” to create pump hydro electricity. It is the same proposal T’ville Enterprise put forward for their ‘shrunken’, ‘miniaturised’ Hells Gates proposal, costed at a prohibitive $5,400m. Much worse still, the Raised B-kin Falls project takes water from the dry inland – in the driest continent on earth – in order to create electricity in the most ‘coal rich’ and ‘solar rich’ state on earth.
Raising B-kin Falls – unconscionably – wastes yet another half million megalitres to evaporation. It starves Bradfield (Hells Gates) and Urannah of water. Destroying both projects for forever.
“We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil” No we haven’t! Ms Qld Govt took it from us. An abortion of a govt, rotten with “gang” “green”.
Now let me be very specific. The Bjelke Peterson Govt. (under Leo Hielscher) and the Fraser Anthony Fed Govt. announced the building of Bradfield in 1982, commissioning the leading dam builders in Aust. history to produce the “Bradfield Consortium Report 1984”.
Bradfield Stage I was the Hells Gates Dam and the Grand Canal to irrigation at the “Uplands Desert” S.W. of Ch. Twrs and thence onto Hughenden’s midwest plains. It was costed (in now money) at $1,410m. Recent add-ons would cost it closer to $3,000m.
Production from Bradfield Stage I is delineated in the “Hells Gates Upper Burdekin Irrigation Scheme” (UBurIS) (McFarlane Consulting 2018). This heavily footnoted document quantifies the project’s annual prod. Figures:
- Ethanol (clean petrol & a feedstock for plastics) - $870m
- Sugar – $502m
- Electricity – $240m
- Biodiesel – $10m,
- Beef Production (from sorghum & pondfeed algae) - $1,380m
- Eucalyptus – as dressed timber - $1,200m.
(as it is an algae project there’s ‘net zero emissions’)
It will earn for Australia from from just UBurIS (Hells Gates) –
Bradfield Stage I $4,200m every year forever.
Hells Gates built to a crest height of 400 metres (above sea level) facilitates the syphoning – not pumping – of water to T’ville.
- T’ville will now get the cheapest and most adequate water supply of any Australian city.
- Ingham, with the diversion of the Upper Herbert, will be protected from the “catastrophic double flood”.
- The Hughenden, Cloncurry, Winton, Longreach Circle’ taking the Bradfield water coming through this Break in the Great Divide will supplement the great but erratic waters of Australia’s 6th largest river - the Flinders. And will deliver over $12,000m every year for forever.
- It regenerates my homeland the Midwest – the “Plains of Promise”. They sadly are now the “Plains of Perish and Pain”. They’ve been degraded by nature;- “the dry” bares the ground and then “the wet” erodes it away. With the ever-growing 12m hectares of prickly acacia infestation and the 3m wild pigs – we now have advanced land degradation with widespread and spreading erosion.
Ballot Farms and Thread Irrigation arrests and reverses this downcycle. It will also provide a reward for those heroic Australians.
“Keeping the flame on a windswept plain”.
“That will keep them broke ‘til they go insane”.
My wife’s (and my) 10 acres in Ch. Towers 50 years ago hadn’t a single tree on it, it had two eroding gullys, scattered tufts of wire grass and over 400 chinee bushes and rubber vines. It now has thick knee high euracloa and buffel, the gullys are rocked. It runs 2 horses and 3 kangaroo who visit. It has over 1,000 native trees and 22 bird species, lawns and gardens.
This is what we can deliver to Inland Nth Qld. The protection of our creeks and rivers, their banks now lined by irrigated pasture. A restoration of nature – the Flinders and Mitchell grasslands. And most important of all, the creation of a wonderland of freedom, opportunity and excitement for our grandkids and their great grandkids.
Bob Katter, KENNEDY MP, has attended commemorations for the Battle of the Coral Sea in Cardwell over the weekend, joining veterans, families, community members and local organisations in paying tribute to those who served during one of the most significant naval battles of World War II.P The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought in May 1942, marked a major turning point in the Pacific War and is widely recognised as the battle that helped halt the Japanese advance towards Australia. Mr Katter said commemorative events like the Cardwell service were critically important in ensuring Australians never forgot the sacrifices made by servicemen and women who defended the nation. “These men and women stood up when their country needed them most. Many never came home, and many others carried the scars of war for the rest of their lives,” Mr Katter said. “Events like this are about paying our respects and making sure younger generations understand the price that was paid for the freedoms we enjoy today. “Regional communities have always carried a very strong tradition of service. You see it right across North Queensland and I have spent untold hours in pubs talking to families who have served generation after generation in defence of this country.” Mr Katter also thanked organisers, veterans and volunteers involved in the commemorations for ensuring the legacy of Australia’s servicemen and women continues to be honoured. “As Australians, we have a duty to remember them. Ceremonies like the Battle of the Coral Sea commemorations keep that spirit of remembrance alive.” ENDS
What started as a small idea tossed over a meat pie in a bakery in 1977, has has turned into one of the biggest drawcard events for North Queensland.
6 May 2026: After spending half his 50-year political life fighting to secure a home-grown supply of cleaner and greener biofuels, Federal MP Bob Katter has backed in an historic alliance of agricultural heavyweights united behind a national ethanol mandate – to protect our health and enable our iconic feedstock industries to deliver greater fuel self-sufficiency – at the highest levels of government. Following direct discussions with Canberra in the wake of yesterday’s joint plea by Australia’s peak grain and sugarcane representatives for sustainably produced ethanol-blended petrol to be mandated nationwide, the North Queensland MP called on the Federal Government to “provide reassurances that the long-overdue implementation of an enforced ethanol mandate is being considered at the highest levels of government” ahead of next week’s Budget, amid the world’s worst energy shock strangling global supply chains and crippling domestic industries. “Ethanol and biodiesel production can be immediately scaled up within a year to extend our existing fuel stockpiles – instead of being shipped off to safeguard other countries’ fuel security because demand from the foreign oil giants for Australian-owned biofuels is still not growing even in the case of domestic supply disruptions and soaring prices,” said Mr Katter. “However, in just 10 years, sustainably Australian-grown and manufactured renewable ethanol could be supplying 10 per cent of Australia’s total domestic petrol requirements, alongside local biodiesel for another five per cent self-sufficiency if there was a biofuels mandate.” The alliance of the National Farmers Federation, GrainGrowers, Australian Sugar Manufacturers and CaneGrowers behind a domestic biofuels mandate follows two decades of both the major and green parties’ rejection of seven of Mr Katter’s private members bills* since 2002 for sovereign biofuels security – with 200 (or one-fifth of all) speeches to Parliament referencing ethanol and biofuels about 1000 times since his 1993 election to the seat of Kennedy; and state laws for ethanol mandates moved by KAP MPs along with dozens more ethanol representations to the Queensland Parliament by Traeger MP Robbie Katter since 2012. “Our laws have been laughed out of Parliament by every government this century,” said Mr Katter after repeated warnings of an inevitable fuel supply crisis facing an island nation left to become dependent on imports without future-proofing our critical fuel and food industries – including the Sovereign Fuel Security Bill 2022 drafted with crossbenchers in the pandemic-era Liberal-National government, for the new Labor Government to secure 80 per cent fuel sufficiency (by banning oil exports for local refining with biofuels) and reliable power and fertiliser inputs for vulnerable industrial and regional communities. “Whilst two of the world’s ‘big-four’ export industries in Australian grain and sugar join everyday Australians screaming for greater fuel self-sufficiency – with no end in sight to the Middle East war shock on global supply chains – governments must act immediately to secure our biofuels future with primary producers and local manufacturers in the national interest, and expand domestic refining to include our own indigenous oil reserves sold offshore for a fraction of the price it costs us to buy back, from our foreign overlords, as 90 per cent of our refined fuel needs.” Mr Katter was equally scathing of the commercially conflicted big oil and motoring groups who for years pushed back against ethanol-blended fuel mandates instituted in 2007 by the NSW Government, to prevent deaths from carcinogenic aromatics and tailpipe emissions that ethanol instead reduces – “which is why more than 60 countries have already moved to ethanol, without all their cars breaking down all over the place” and increased ethanol content to almost one-third of Brazil’s petrol; 20 per cent now mandated in India (five years ahead of national targets to cut oil imports, reduce emissions and support domestic agricultural industries); 15 per cent in the United States, and 10 per cent in China. “So all the lies about engine incompatibility peddled through a complicit media, they can share the guilt of needless deaths of thousands of people in our big cities from small particle emissions,” said Mr Katter. “And we will be moving our legislation once again, to hold every major party and greenie politician to account to the Australian people, as to why we’re one of the last countries on Earth – apart from New Zealand, Africa, and the oil-producing nations like Russia, South America and Venezuela – to future-proof our renewable biofuels self-sufficiency without even spending a cent on a mandate, as well as protecting our health and hip pockets, along with our iconic regional industries and communities.” ENDS * Following the Fuel Quality Standards (Renewable Content of Motor Vehicle Fuel) Amendment Bills put to the Australian Parliament as an Independent MP in 2002, 2005 and 2006, the Katter’s Australian Party MP further moved his Renewable Fuel Bills in 2013, 2016 and 2017, and the Sovereign Fuel Security Bill in 2022.
KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has written to the Prime Minister to immediately halve fuel excise to deliver emergency relief from record price pressures crippling the nation’s freight industry, and protect Australia’s primary producers. Mr Katter has warned the PM that farmers and freight operators being crushed by fuel costs across North Queensland are now reaching breaking point – with the escalating threat to their viability raising alarm that Australia’s biggest banana-growing region faces the prospect of fruit being left to rot this season, due to prohibitive fuel prices for harvest and transport. “If we fail to act quickly, the consequences will not be limited to regional Australia,” Mr Katter wrote to the PM. “When farmers in Kennedy cannot afford to harvest and transport their produce, supermarket shelves across the nation will feel the impact.” Mr Katter said that while farmers, truck drivers and families struggled under exorbitant fuel costs, the Commonwealth Government continued to collect both fuel excise and GST on every litre sold – “still taking the cream from every bowser while the people who grow and transport our food are pushed closer to the brink”. With the North Queensland electorate of Kennedy accounting for one of the nation’s largest and most productive food bowls – growing 90 per cent of Australia’s bananas for our second-most bought supermarket item, after toilet paper – Mr Katter said reports of growers now questioning whether they could afford to harvest fruit this season were “an unacceptable situation for a country as wealthy and resource-rich as Australia”. “We are being told farmers are letting fruit rot as the cost of picking it and trucking it to market no longer stacks up. That should send a chill through every government office in this country.” With immense pressure on the road freight industry that underpins agricultural supply chains, major North Queensland operators fear the unsustainable burden of out-of-control fuel costs. “Companies such as Blenner’s Transport and Curley's Transport – the lifeblood of our supply chain in North Queensland, moving produce from paddocks to plates – they are left with no choice but to pass on those increasing costs down the line,” said Mr Katter. “And the people at the very bottom of that chain are our farmers.” Mr Katter said halving the fuel excise would deliver relief not just to freight companies and farmers, but also families across the country. “This is a simple decision the Prime Minister can make right now to protect Australia’s farmers and the supply chain that feeds this nation.” ENDS
KENNEDY MP Bob Katter MP led a scathing attack on the Albanese Government’s handling of the Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 in Parliament, calling it un-Australian and warning that it was clear Labor was drunk on power moving legislation that threatens the heart of Aussie culture – having a beer at the local pub. “The original Labor Party was born in the pubs of Australia. These fellas in those days would quite literally drag you out of a pub and punch you in the face if you didn’t take a union ticket out – yet here we are, debating a law that taxes beer. I cannot think of a better example of just how dangerous and drunk on power the Labor party have become. They are now threatening the very fabric of our social and community life,” Mr Katter said. The Bill before Parliament seeks to freeze the automatic inflation-linked increase on draught beer excise for a two-year period from 1 August 2025 to 1 August 2027 but Mr Katter wants the increase scrapped indefinitely. Mr Katter seconded his crossbench colleague, Barnaby Joyce’s, second reading amendment of removing the annual increase to keep alive an Australia tradition. “Australia's identity very much comes out of the bush pub, and you are eroding the identity of Australians if you take that away. You are also eroding our ability to talk to each other,” Mr Katter said. Mr Katter, who is infamous for talking with patrons of pubs all over Australia, said one of the most important places to learn about the state of politics and the state of the nation was by talking to people having a beer. “As a member of parliament, I like to find out what people are thinking and what their attitude is towards the government's policies and the best way to do that is to go down to the local hotel. “I’ve been shown an interesting graph which shows suicides amongst males in Australia – parallels the graph of the decline of the hotels and people going into the pubs. “I know that, if I myself am really down, I just go down to the pub, have a lot of good fun with my mates and go home a lot happier and more relaxed than before. But, for people who are more traumatised by reality than, probably, I am, it really is a matter of life and death in many cases, and that's not an exaggeration. “There's a little town called Maxwelton, and I love pulling up there because of all the cockies in the area and all the contractors and various other people that are employed in the cattle and sheep industry. You find out what's going on. You could have a good time at the Maxwelton pub. Well, it doesn't exist anymore, because of the impositions that government placed upon it.” Mr Katter warned that while a freeze may superficially lower the pressure on draught beer prices, many in the hospitality and brewing sectors argue that a broader reform is needed to sustain small venues and local producers. “Beer is tradition, it is community, and it is part of our social fabric. A two-year freeze on indexation isn’t enough when pubs are struggling under rising costs, regulatory burdens and declining patrons,” Mr Katter added. “In the end, it’s about more than beer. It’s about protecting our way of life, our towns, and the simple Aussie traditions that bind us together,” Mr Katter concluded. ENDS
KENNEDY MP, Bob Katter extended his support to the Jewish community in Australia during a condolence motion in Parliament House today. The murder of so many innocent, everyday Australians, including the youngest - ten-year-old ‘Matilda’ – MUST be condemned at the highest level. Mr Katter said, “This wonderful little kid was murdered. “This lovely little girl called Matilda, whose parents had migrated to Australia and name their first child born in this country ‘Matilda’ as a tribute. My heart bleeds for them. This innocent little girl was shot dead by Islamic Extremists. “These murders were ‘known’ by the authorities, yet they were allowed to stay here and fester with their extreme beliefs, they were allowed to obtain weapons, they were allowed to travel overseas and return after ‘training’, and they ended up carrying out a horrific act of terrorism. There was a clear failure of the immigration authorities, ASIO, and the NSW Labor Government – firearm licensing. I’ll bet they don’t miss a night’s sleep over it.” In paying homage to the victims of the Bondi massacre, Mr Katter extended his support on behalf of the Australian people, but slammed the bodies responsible. “The people of Australia, they mourn for you,” he said. “Who was responsible for that murder, a couple of rabid bloody lunatics. We have got mad dogs everywhere, but the question must be who let those mad dogs into the country? “The first person that is guilty is the immigration department, and the Minister Tony Burke has to take responsibility for what occurred, which he has not done. “Secondly, ASIO had them on the watchlist and yet they were still allowed to collect three high powered rifles that are registered. What is the point in having an ASIO if you allow these people to have high powered rifles? This is a gang that couldn’t shoot straight. They are an absolute disgrace to the government. “Thirdly, the NSW government. The Liberal government when in power, refused to give this person on an ASIO watch list, a gun licence. Within months of the Labor party taking office, he gets his firearms licence and he gets three guns. “What, does he belong to the western Sydney clay shooting club does he? What… does he go shooting deer on the outskirts of Sydney does he? What could he possibly want the guns for? “So, the NSW government can take full responsibility for what has occurred. And my message to them is, don’t hide because YOU are responsible.” Mr Katter lashed unvetted mass immigration but cautioned that it wasn’t the “religion” to blame. “I must say that it isn’t the Islamic “religion”. Our neighbours the Indonesians are a Muslim country and they are excellent people. “The rabid mad dogs that have been allowed into this country have been from the Middle East and north Africa. “There are four wars going on there at last count. They are either killing each other or killing other people. “They attacked kids having a good time at a music festival and then they pulled the same stunt here in Australia. I spit upon them. And the people responsible for bringing them into this country have not been yarded and they need to be yarded.” ENDS
