North Queensland residents say electoral boundary changes leave them 'short-changed'
KAP member Shane Knuth is facing the abolition of his state seat of Hill. (ABC News: Baz Ruddick)
In short:
North Queensland would lose a seat in parliament to account for population growth elsewhere, under a change to state electoral boundaries.
The Queensland Redistribution Commission is proposing the abolition of Hill, a rural seat centred on the Atherton Tablelands.
What's next?
People have until April 9 to lodge objections to the proposed boundary changes.
North Queenslanders say they feel "short-changed" by a proposal to abolish a rural seat in state parliament to account for population growth in the state's south-east.
The seat of Hill, centred on mostly agricultural areas south-west of Cairns, is one of two seats proposed to be scrapped in Queensland's first review of electoral boundaries since 2017.
The Queensland Redistribution Commission (QRC) said it identified a need to remove a North Queensland seat as the population grows faster elsewhere, particularly around Moreton Bay.
However, the changes would force some rural communities in the lush, tropical Atherton Tablelands into a vast north-west Queensland seat centred on Mount Isa, about 1,000 kilometres away.
That seat, to be renamed from Traeger to Flinders, is held by Katter's Australian Party leader Robbie Katter.
Greg English, a farmer from Malanda who also heads up the town's agricultural show society, said he was in "absolute disbelief".
"[There are] not too many dairy cows in Mount Isa or Camooweal or Doomadgee or Burketown are there?"he said.
"This part of the Tablelands has absolutely nothing in common with those areas except we're all in the state of Queensland."
Parliament's 'impossible' job?
Mr English said it was "impossible for anybody to effectively represent the whole area" of Flinders, Queensland's second-largest electorate.
"Make them do that for a year and see how well they go, effectively representing an electorate that covers from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Northern Territory, almost across to the coast," he said.
Malanda is a lush, hilly area, famous for its waterfall and dairy industry. (Supplied: Malanda Falls Caravan Park)
With Charters Towers shifting to the Burdekin seat, the proposed new boundaries would actually reduce Flinders' size.
That's no consolation for residents of Millaa Millaa like Linda Heffernan, who is considering writing a formal submission against the abolition of Hill.
If it goes ahead, it would be the third time Ms Heffernan's local seat has been abolished in two decades.
"We need all the representatives as we can up here," she said.
"It's just no good; it just feels like we've been short-changed."
The Liberal National Party (LNP) suggested that Hill be scrapped in its submission to the boundary review, recommending that voters in the under-quota electorate be reallocated to neighbouring seats with shared interests.
Wayde Chiesa (left) won Hinchinbrook for the LNP at a by-election last year but the seat's boundaries are about to change. (ABC News)
The KAP's Shane Knuth holds the seat of Hill but is now facing the removal of his electorate for the third time in his 22-year parliamentary career.
"They should just be honest and say they just want to get rid of him," Mr English said.
Shane Knuth (left) plans to talk to his constituents about which seat they want him to contest. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)
Matthew Tickner, a Cairns councillor who represents parts of the city's southern suburbs, was concerned the loss of a Far North Queensland parliamentarian would dilute the region's voices.
"Regardless of your political alignment, the fact that we're looking to lose that person is a real detriment to our area,"he said.
'Winners and losers'
LNP member for Mulgrave Terry James said his party was not deliberately targeting the KAP when making its submission, but was instead trying to be practical about accounting for population changes.
"It's a very tricky situation to marry up the numbers where you get large growth pockets," he said.
Terry James on the night he was elected as Member for Mulgrave in 2024. (ABC News: Conor Byrne)
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said his focus was on serving voters "regardless of where the lines are drawn on a map".
The LNP submission to the review said abolishing Hill could prevent "a cascade of disruptive adjustments throughout Northern Queensland" or fragmentation of the Tablelands.
However, Mr Knuth's Hill electorate office is in Atherton, which, despite being 20 kilometres from Malanda, could soon be in a different seat.
"One minute, you're 15 minutes away to see your MP, the next minute you're 15 hours away,"Mr Knuth said.
In its report, the QRC said removing Hill allowed it to keep three electorates focused on urban Townsville.
The seat of Hinchinbrook would lose the northern parts of Townsville and become a rural seat covering much of the coast towards Cairns.
Atherton is proposed to shift into the seat of Mulgrave, while some surrounding communities nearby would go into a seat with faraway Mount Isa. (ABC News: Nathan Morris)
Hinchinbrook would include Babinda, a town that campaigned to be placed in Mulgrave instead.
Former Labor MP-turned-analyst John Mickel said, with Hill gone, the KAP would likely target Mulgrave, a seat it nearly won in 2024.
Mulgrave is set to gain parts of the Atherton Tablelands, making it a more rural electorate.
"There was a Labor seat abolished on the southside of Brisbane, as there should have been," Mr Mickel said.
"It was dramatically under quota, and if you're going to have roughly equal numbers of seats, there are winners and losers.
"KAP was a loser; so was Labor."