Bob Katter forms rural-focused "Australian Party", with unabashed support for ethanol

June 6, 2011 |

Maverick Aussie politician Bob Katter, founder of rural-focused "Australian Party"

Meet Bob Katter.

Last week, the outspoken Australian politician announced the formation of the “Australian Party”, with one of its platform policies an increase in the blending of ethanol into the gasoline supply.

The former Queensland state government minister is a federal MP who resigned from the National Party in 2001 as the party drifted towards economic deregulation and privatization as a junior member of a conservative coalition with the Liberal Party. After mulling

Opponents of Katter call him “Mad Katter,” but the populist has been won 70 percent or more of votes in his Queensland constuentcy since 2001. He’s been mulling the formation of a new political party focused on agricultural interests for nearly two decades.

Key issues: increasing biofuels consumption, roll back on free trade, killing a carbon tax proposed by the incumbent Labor Government, turning back “boat people,” asylum seekers who land illegally on Australia’s shores, and breaking the monopoly held by major retailers Coles and Woolworths.

Katter called out “the threatened loss of 500 jobs at Mount Isa Mines, the likely closure of Malanda dairy factory with another 500 jobs gone, and the Babinda sugar mill losing another 500 because the latest federal budget had nothing for them”. Sean Parnell, writing in the Australian, described the effort as one last attempt “to distribute power among those in regional and remote Australia whom, he argues, have been left behind.”

Queensland politicians described the new party as “an interesting experiment” or “a minor irritant,” with healthy skepticism expressed by most observers that the party will be able to build or sustain support at the polls.

58 percent of Australian voters expressed opposition to a new carbon tax, base don expectations that it would drive up electricity prices. Meanwhile, other observers have pointed out that, despite Australia’s booming dollar and fast-growing economy, the boom is too narrowly based on fast growth in the mining industry. Both factors may help to build support for a new political party based on an unabashedly Australian-centric outlook.

“We’re nation builders; we’re not economic rationalists, we’re economic nationalists,” Katter told the Brisbane Times.

Category: Fuels

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