The Hon. Robbie Katter, Leader of the KAP and state Member for Traeger, Media Release, 13 May 2026

The Brisbane major parties need to get over their egos and remember they govern for Queensland, not for political point scoring, Leader of the KAP and state Member for Traeger Robbie Katter has said. 

Mr Katter praised the KAP’s Member for Hill, Shane Knuth, for tabling a biofuels mandate bill that would force big oil companies to use more ethanol and biodiesel, kick starting a revitalisation of the biofuels industry in Queensland.

“If the government is too scared to act, or put its shoulder to the wheel, then the KAP will,” Mr Katter said. 

“The agriculture industry is backing it, the biofuels industry is screaming for a demand signal, and we’re in an international fuel crisis – why would we not be immediately scaling up our biofuel production, and growing our own fuel?

“Mr Knuth’s bill does exactly what investors need – send a clear message that there will be demand for ethanol.

“The LNP, while in Opposition came to the parliament at least four times to support action on biofuels, so now they are in government, it’s time they rolled up their sleeves and put their money where their mouth is,” he said. 

In 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2015, the Queensland LNP while in opposition tabled bills and a motion to mandate biofuel usage in Queensland. 

“Cane farmers in Ayr and the Burdekin will be eagerly awaiting their local LNP MP’s support of the KAP bill, because they are feeling the pain of how hard the sugar industry is doing it at the moment,” the KAP leader said. 

“In 2015 the Member for Burdekin said in Parliament he ‘wholeheartedly support the introduction of a mandate for the use of ethanol and other biofuels in Queensland’. For the sake of the sugar industry I hope he hasn’t had a change of heart.

“When we have the sugar millers and the growers on a unity ticket, you know it’s getting very serious. 

“Cane Growers organisation told my committee ‘if we do not do something about this issue in the industry, in a year or two, if not sooner, we will be starting to look for support packages in some of the regions’. It can’t be much clearer.

“That’s why Mr Knuth has put this bill forward – a way to save not only his Cane farmers in Hill from Innisfail to Tully, but for the sake of Queensland growers and their communities up and down the coast.