Bob Katter

The Albanese government’s attack on backpackers is illogical at best and, at worst, just down right stupid. Overwhelmingly the pathway to permanent migration is through the student visa scheme and not backpackers. In our regions backpackers pick our fruit, pour our beers, clean our hotel rooms and make our coffees… they spend monies earnt exploring our wonderful country. Very few stay and those that do integrate into our communities. Backpackers must be encouraged and welcomed into Australia … they are NOT and should never be considered to be part of the backdoor migration cohort. They’re just here for a good time… not a long time. And for that I thank them for coming here, doing the work, spending the money and having the adventure.

In the north we can pay up to 4 times the cost for insurance as is paid in the rest of Australia. 20% northern homes are uninsured (more than double Australia’s average). Of the homes that are insured 83% are under insured - meaning that insurance won’t cover rebuilding costs. THIS IS NOT JUST CONCERNING… THIS IS A NATIONAL EMERGENCY. Further exacerbated by the Federal government tightening the purse strings on much needed disaster funds. We need legislation change to get more insurers offering affordable insurance in the north. That is why the cyclone reinsurance pool was introduced... That is what government should be doing.

For eight years, the KAP has pushed relocation sentencing for serious repeat youth offenders. We were told no. We were asked why we kept talking about it. Well, this is why.... The LNP Government has now adopted our policy and passed it into law and credit where it’s due, they’ve followed through. It won’t solve youth crime on its own, but getting serious repeat offenders out of the environments driving their offending and into structured programs is an important part of the solution. It also puts to bed the claim that the KAP can’t achieve anything outside of government. Next up Castle Law!

Today Bob called on government to ban the importation of goods produced under slave labour wages or child labour. This could be a game changer for Australia’s manufacturing and agricultural sectors, and stopping the importation on goods, like bananas, we don’t want or need. Government agreed… Now we MUST ensure their actions meet their words.

Currently when we import goods into Australia no consideration is given to the economic or social impacts. Our manufactures and farmers have paid the price. Our clothing industry - closed. Our car industry - closed. Our seafood industry - on it’s knees Our pork industry - on it’s knees Our citrus and apple growers - on it’s knees Our banana and tropical fruit growers - at significant risk. THIS MUST STOP If our manufacturers and farmers thrive.. we have more jobs, more money stays in Australia and Australians thrive. Yesterday Bob changed the narrative. Challenging government to ban imports produced under slave labour wages and/or child labour….. One small step, but finally some recognition of the misery our ‘free trade mantra’ causes both in Australia and overseas. Pictured below: Bob’s suspension

To bring in laws for an Artificial Intelligence (AI) 'Kill Switch', I voted with my crossbench colleagues, Andrew Gee MP and Dai Le. The Government shut us down. AI... It's been baffling me for a while now how people are taking me off on social media! Last week, I saw a video of me on that Dating Game television show from the 80s. Sure, it gave me a laugh... but it got me thinking... what else is AI capable of?! Where does it stop? Does it infiltrate the school yard? Our defence force? Our energy grid? Whilst it is astounding that technology is leaping forward, it is also a flashing neon light for danger. Something is seriously wrong when you aren't sure what's real or fake anymore and it is moving too quickly. So a 'Kill Switch' seems like a pretty sensible thing to me. It was disappointing that the Government chose to shut the debate down. We lost the vote 89-13. And that is no joke.

Families with the means to enjoy life rather than just survive it? More babies for Australia? Sounds like a pretty good thing to me. But apparently, Jim Chalmers isn’t convinced. I asked the Treasurer about income splitting and backing a new Australian baby boom... Policies that recognise the real value of unpaid care and reverse our vanishing race. The choice, either way, should be in women’s hands… NOT the Treasurers. Have a listen to his excuses…

8 September 2026: A bold plan to reverse the plunging birthrate by recognising the value of unpaid care has been rejected by Government in favour of incentivising more working parents of our “vanishing race”, warns the Father of the House of Representatives and North Queensland MP of half-a-century, Bob Katter. In addition to asking for a $75,000 payment per birth, the Federal Member for Kennedy this week asked the Treasurer in Question Time to help families crippled by the cost-of-living crisis with taxable income-splitting to boost disposable incomes for spouses raising children on a single wage by about 10 per cent on average. But instead of acknowledging annual tax relief of about $8000-$10,000 for struggling families with a single wage-earner on $80,000-$150,000 a year – which would boost household budgets between 9-12 per cent 1 – the Treasurer claimed income-splitting would “disincentivise” women’s workforce participation, leaving them “economically dependent” on men, and “cost the budget substantially” to deliver the “lion’s share” of benefits to “higher wealth” families whilst “denying” those in lower tax bands. Mr Katter accused the Treasurer of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” by dismissing outright the long-overdue “fairer family tax” policy with the introduction of a $75,000 payment for all new mothers “to spend as they see fit – from putting food on the table to investing in superannuation for their future”. “Families cannot make ends meet,” Mr Katter told the Treasurer in reference to average household debt at over $300,000 or $400,000 for under-50s, with the hyper-inflated cost-of-living now crippling 25 per cent of parent couples on a single income who suffered the “appalling inequality at tax time” that leaves a stay-at-home mum and three kids struggling by on $15,000 per person, whilst double-income-no-kids (DINKS) enjoy disposable incomes of $75,000 each. “Surely, family income-splitting makes taxation fairer, whilst a $75,000 birthing payment would help arrest Australia's plunging birthrates,” he pleaded in the Parliament. Mr Katter said the Treasurer’s devaluing of unpaid work further betrayed all parents “who bear enormous responsibility for raising our nation’s future generations to advance Australia fair”. “The Treasurer’s righteous virtue-signalling this week in the Parliament – supposedly on the side of women who quite reasonably want to be paid for their work – in turn infantilises mothers whose endless work for their family remains unpaid, like many carers, when the choice either way should be in women’s hands,” said Mr Katter. “Instead, Australian mums and dads are financially penalised when only one parent is paying income tax – which is really the only productivity measure that the Treasurer truly cares about. “But while he’s crying poor on an estimated $3 billion annual cost of income-splitting to the budget bottom line, he’s spending five times that subsidising the private childcare industry to boast about the benefits for women in the Kennedy electorate who can be on endless waitlists or have zero local early childhood places. “And when you tally the cost to taxpayers of about $14 billion propping up commercial childcare plus another $5 billion a year in parental leave – not to mention an estimated $20 billion in means-tested Family Tax Benefits – it puts into perspective the estimated $22 billion cost of an upfront $75,000 bonus for fewer than 300,000 births a year, to help lift Australia back up to relative post-war boomer rates.” Projections of the compounding benefits of lifting birthrates from below 1.5 to above the 2.1 replacement rate, align with an Australian population reaching 80 million with one million births annually in a century 2 . “I want 80 million people in this country so our industries can operate on economies of scale; so we’re not doomed to repeat the history of ‘a people without land seeking for a land without people’,” said Mr Katter. ENDS

We all know about the thriving illegal tobacco and vape industry. We all know the real causes - failures at our borders and the huge taxes on legal sales. However this issue becomes even more insidious when it is alleged that the criminals behind this trade are state sponsored terrorists organisations. Yes that’s right terrorist groups that have the backing of their country and access to the associated power and government structures. Illegal sales of tobacco aren’t simply lining the pockets of a couple of local crims…… it’s coordinated, professional and scary. Our police on the front line are vulnerable… shop owners exposed and customers preyed on. There is an urgent need to change our system, lower restrictions and cost of legal goods so the element can be quashed. In Wisdom Mongrel Patriot we discuss this and many other key issues relating to the latest laws before Parliament. To watch full episode on YouTube click here To watch full episode on Spotify click here