Bob Katter

“Whitefellas can get a freehold title to land. Blackfellas in the community areas don’t have access to freehold title deeds. White fellas can drink, Blackfellas in community areas can’t. Whitefellas get Bluecards. We can’t because we drank alcohol and got a criminal charge against us,” Mr Katter said.

“We had the right to timber for dugouts, woomeras, spears etc. Now we cannot chop down a tree,” he said.

“We were allowed to take rocks and quarry materials for our axe heads and for crushing seed to make flour. Now we cannot take the rocks.

“We were allowed to turn our creeks into fish traps, now we cannot do that.”

Mr Katter said the LNP hadn’t been much better either having pulled funding for First Australian housing and failing to deliver on key promises like establishing market gardens.

On 8 November 2019, Bob Katter received a signed letter off Prime Minister Scott Morrison promising that his Government would, ‘work with communities like

Yarrabah, and Mornington Island, to set up market gardens as part of the plans for the economic and health opportunities for these communities.’

The Federal Government hasn’t built any market gardens, but rather spent money on feasibility studies which are yet to be finished.

Former Napranum Aboriginal Shire CEO, Greg Wallace - who instituted the work for the dole scheme for Australia - and ran for the KAP in the Senate at the 2019 Federal election, gave a speech that summed up the disadvantage community areas face now.[1] 

“We had three-thousand jobs in the Cape, and in Napranum we designed and built our own housing. Today, the Federal Government has actually pulled the funding. So, we have an all time need for housing,” he said.

“In those days we had self-management and we had black CEOs in the majority of the communities. Today, we have one or two and that’s about it. Instead of going forward we are going backwards.

“We had 36,000 head of cattle in the cape and now we have none. The industry has been destroyed.

“We had title deeds in the communities. Now there is no certainty with the deeds. Once we get title deeds there are business opportunities. We can borrow money from the banks and create businesses.”

Mr Katter said when he was Minister for Affairs in the Bjelke-Petersen State Government, he granted inalienable freehold title deeds because that’s what the people wanted.

“I am famous forever because they are called the Katter leases,” he said.

“But really, I didn’t have much to do with it. I just listened to the people and gave them what they wanted.”

-ENDS-



[1] https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=737394403749856&id=735095280646435