From Townsville Bureau
KAP Member for Hill Shane Knuth has launched a fierce attack on the Queensland Redistribution Commission’s proposal to abolish his electorate of Hill, warning it will strip North Queensland communities of their voice in Parliament.
Under the Commission’s proposal, which endorses the LNP submission recommending the abolishment of Hill, the electorate would be dismantled and absorbed into neighbouring electorates including Mulgrave, Hinchinbrook and Flinders, diminishing North Queensland seats from 13 to 12 – increasing Brisbane to more than 60.
This is despite an overwhelming number of submissions to the Commission that strongly opposed abolishing the seat of Hill.
Time and time again the three members of supposedly independent commission, Gregory Koppenol (Judicial Chairman), John Sosso (Member), and Pat Vidgen PSM (Electoral Commissioner), have ignored many hundreds of public submissions telling them to leave an electorate alone but have acted against the will of the people who pay their exorbitant wages.
Mr Knuth said the decision represents a devastating blow to communities across the Tablelands and Cassowary Coast, who will lose a dedicated representative fighting for the north in Brisbane.
“I am extremely disappointed and deeply concerned by the proposal to abolish the seat of Hill and carve our communities up between other electorates,” Mr Knuth said.
“I have my doubts the Commission would have recommended for the abolishment of Hill without the LNP Submission.”
Mr Knuth said the proposal raises serious questions about the integrity of the redistribution process and the level of influence major political parties have over it.
“Regional Queenslanders are rightly asking whether this process is truly independent when the outcome so clearly disadvantages North Queensland.”
This is the third time the LNP has abolished a seat won by the intrepid, hard-working, Katters Australian Party member ever since he cancelled his membership of the LNP in 2011.
A former North Queensland NRL player, Knuth first won the seat of Charters Towers for the LNP in 2004 then a redistribution in 2009 created the new electorate of Dalrymple which he held until 2017 when another redistribution, with the help of the Brisbane-centric LNP, created the new seat of Hill which he has held since then.
Not since the early 80’s, under the leadership of Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen, has the Liberal National Party targeted a state member with such vengeance, modeled on the infamous LNP gerrymander which held the Labor Party in check for many years.
Knuth is extremely popular in North Queensland coming from a successful cattle producing family and his 20 years working in the railway. Perhaps being a member of the NQ Marlins rugby league team playing at the top of the ladder 1984-86 then playing for the Dolphins 1987-92 engendered his tremendous empathy towards his constituents.
Since the announcement of the latest gerrymander Knuth’s loyal constituents have hit the media running, in support, attacking the Redistribution Commission’s sortie against North Queensland’s prime farming district of the Atherton Tablelands.
On ABC Radio Malanda farmer Peter English unleashed a scathing attack on the “biased” Redistribution Commission which Premier Crisafulli claims is independent of the LNP.
“How are we going to be represented when the electorate is centred on Mt Isa 1100 klms away. This decision to take away our parliamentary representation is madness,” he said.
The thriving townships of Malanda, Milla Milla, Ravenshoe, Herberton and Mt Garnet will become a part of Robbie Katter’s (Traeger) renamed Flinders electorate at the next state election.
The Hill electorate with its highly productive farming and cattle production certainly pays its way in the state’s economic stakes thanks to Knuth’s stewardship through the dark years of Labor rule.
Tablelands Regional Council has loudly voiced its objection to having their key townships being included in Flinders, primarily based on the vast distance to Mt Isa. Flinders has been held by KAP leader Robbie Katter for 14 years.
His enormous electorate based on Mt Isa extends from the Northern Territory border through the Gulf Region south to Charters Towers, a vast electorate which would be impossible to cover without aircraft.
Traeger covered an area of 428,911 square kilometres which Robbie Katter could only service by air using his own plane and he is livid the LNP thinks it can wipe out KAP in North Queensland by gerrymandering himself and Knuth out of parliament.
“This attack on the people of North Queensland by the LNP delivers Brisbane one more seat and denies the agricultural engine room of the state decent representation in parliament, now with just 12 seats,” said the popular Robbie Katter.
The most recent, overt maneuvering against KAP started with the Premier in 2025 suggesting then KAP member for Hinchinbrook, Nick Dametto, another energetic and prominent representative, put up his hand for the vacant position of Townsville Mayor. In doing so Crisafulli promised the LNP would help him with his campaign. Dametto won the mayoralty by a margin of more than 60 percent which he would have done in any case without help from the Premier.
The KAP candidate narrowly lost the ensuing by-election in Dametto’s vacated electorate to the LNP with the help of One Nation preferences. The Premier’s strategy worked nicely, albeit the LNP had an average of 10 or more helpers handing out how to vote cards on every Hinchinbrook booth. Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter also was helping at booths and remarked he had never seen sitting State Cabinet Ministers and their staff handing out voting material in his 50 years of parliament.
Disenfranchising the people of Hill by the LNP is motivated by the KAP ‘thorn in the side’ syndrome which has scored several direct hits on the morality of most LNP MP’s who have supported the killing of babies at nine months old in the state’s numerous abortion clinics.
In 2024 there were more than 10,000 abortions carried out in Queensland, which is, according to the Australian Christian Lobby, a terrible aberration of humanity. After the latest unsuccessful attempt to reopen the abortion debate by Robbie Katter, the incensed Crisafulli, after one of his LNP members crossed the floor in support, banned any mention of the word ‘abortion’ in parliament until after the next election.
The LNP’s other no-go topics are crocodile control and Castle Law, which saw the biggest ever tabled, parliamentary petition initiated by KAP, allowing for home owners to defend themselves during all-too-frequent violent home invasions by any means available without fear of prosecution.
KAP is leading these charges much to the chagrin of the Premier who for whatever reason does not believe in the right of self- defence against marauding young criminals or voracious crocodiles.
An angry Shane Knuth charged: “The LNP is trying to destroy KAP by whatever means necessary.”
Shane Knuth has asked the residents of Hill electorate to sign this parliamentary petition in an effort to keep the electorate intact:
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Petitions/petition-details/4460-26
