The Hon. Robbie Katter, Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) Leader and Member for Traeger, Media Release, 23 September 2025

Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) Leader and Member for Traeger, Robbie Katter, has criticised the slow rollout of the National Flood Warning Infrastructure Network (FWIN) program, warning that Charters Towers and other North West communities are being left exposed.

Mr Katter said he welcomed the Federal Government’s $236 million investment to improve and integrate rain and river gauges, and the decision to centralise responsibility for the system through the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

“This will certainly deliver stronger disaster preparedness and better protection for communities, but the truth is, North Queensland can’t afford to wait until 2029 for these protections to arrive,” Mr Katter said.

The FWIN program, which began in 2023, is designed to acquire and upgrade around 1,000 sites across Queensland, yet progress in the Charters Towers region has been slow, with 19 sites identified but only one acquired so far.

Mr Katter said the 2025 flood event made the weaknesses of the current system clear.

“Council was left relying on locals to ring in where the rain was falling just to piece together what was happening on the ground. That’s not a criticism of Council, they did the best they could with what they had – that shows how fragile the current system is,” he said.

Mr Katter said lessons from the past must be heeded, pointing to the 2019 Burketown floods where communities were left cut off and stranded for weeks due to inadequate early warnings and patchy coverage.

“Same was needed up in the Gulf. That disaster proved how costly delays are when locals are forced to fend for themselves without proper information. We can’t afford to repeat those mistakes,” he said.

He said early, and accurate warnings are essential for families, graziers and emergency responders.

“The Burdekin headwaters and adjoining systems remain high-risk and high consequence during the wet season. A reliable system can mean the difference between being inconvenienced or being devastated.

“One more season of patchy coverage or outages is simply unacceptable. North Queensland deserves a reliable, modern flood warning system well before 2029,” Mr Katter said.