Calls from rural Queensland publicans for government intervention to buffer soaring insurance costs topping $65,000 per year are being heard by Katter’s Australian Party Leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter, who’s proposing a market moderator.

In response to revelations that outback pubs including newly renovated and reopened Kajabbi’s Kalkadoon Hotel and Dajarra Hotel were facing exorbitant insurance costs blamed on location and materials, Mr Katter said a moderator would be a good start.

“Outback and remote pubs play a far more pivotal role than the standard pub in Brisbane or Townsville,” he told the ABC.

“This is a market failure — and there’s no moderator in the market and the system couldn’t give a stuff about issues like this.”

The proposed moderator would take the form of a discretionary mutual fund – a member-funded, self-insurance vehicle that managed claims and lifted risk management standards to try to minimise claims.

Jeff Bambrick from the Kalkadoon Hotel was forced to insure his pub through an overseas company and said he hoped someone could do something as outback publicans were fighting a losing battle.

“I contacted, through a broker, three insurance companies in Australia and they just said because it’s a remote outback wooden pub, they just refused,” he said.

“It didn’t matter what I did – I could jump over the moon – they just wouldn’t insure it.”

Richard “Rhino” Ryan from the Dajarra Hotel told media his insurance costs for the 84-year-old timber building had more than doubled over the past three years to $65,000.

He was forced to close his pub at the height of the COVID pandemic, then had to keep it closed for two months while public liability insurance was unavailable to him.

“I think somebody needs to intervene,” he told Robbie Katter’s office.

“We have brand-new dongas built to Australian standards, and the insurance company said no, that they’re too flammable … we built them to standard but insurance companies refuse to insure.”

Mr Katter said the bush continued to be grossly and unfairly disadvantaged, and he would persist in representing the interests of publicans in rural, regional and remote communities.

In 2019, the KAP passed a private member’s bill that slashed annual licence fees for 112 very remote Queensland pubs, then defended outback pubs and clubs against fines from COVID social distancing breaches and “one size fits all” mandates.

“These pubs are often a lifeline for the communities they serve, and letting them die would have disastrous social and economic ramifications,” Mr Katter said.

In progressing the insurance issue, Mr Katter was considering stakeholder engagement with the Queensland Hotels Association and a potential request for a Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry.

He invited other publicans having similar issues to write into his office to help bring the broader issue to the attention of the State and Federal Governments.

Email Traeger@parliament.qld.gov.au to get in touch.

20220802 RK media release – CHEERS TO MODERATOR FOR ‘PUB WITH NO INSURANCE’