Newsroom

July 22, 2025

Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) Leader and Member for Traeger Robbie Katter has criticised the Queensland Government for once again turning its back on remote renal patients by ignoring requests for lifesaving funds in the latest Budget.

Despite persistent lobbying by Mr Katter for funding to extend the Charters Towers renal dialysis service, backed by Health Service leaders, the 2025-26 State Budget contained no commitment to support additional staff to expand the four-chair dialysis operation from three to five days a week.

“This is a cruel oversight from a government that promised to listen to regional Queensland and provide easier access to health services,” Mr Katter said.

“We have local dialysis chairs sitting idle in Charters Towers on Tuesdays and Thursdays while several local patients who have not been allocated a chair are forced to make multiple full-day round trips to Townsville every week for this lifesaving treatment.”

Mr Katter said the Budget was an opportunity for the Crisafulli Government to do the right thing.

“Instead, they are ignoring the problem altogether and leaving patients condemned to spend their final years on the road instead of at home, with dignity,” he said.

In a recent meeting with Queensland Health, it was indicated there was application for funding in the Budget for additional renal staff to accommodate four patients waiting for a renal chair in Charters Towers. 

It’s understood the extra staff would equate to approximately half a million dollars in additional wages.

Mr Katter said recruiting and retaining staff in rural and regional communities was a perpetual battle but was not an excuse to provide inadequate health care.

“Time and time again, sick rural Queenslanders are shortchanged and forced to deal with a chronic shortage of services that are considered a basic human right in the city,” he said.  

“While the State Government has no hesitation in splashing $300 million on one footbridge in the Brisbane River, plus billions on the Cross River Rail and 2032 Olympics, no one comes to our rescue when our backs are against the wall in the North.”

In a recent Parliamentary speech, Mr Katter said Queensland was an economic stronghold and was supposed to represent solidarity.

“We’re just as much a part of Queensland as anyone in the southeast and that means we should be guaranteed the same access to health services and support,” he said.