FEDERAL Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter has applauded the announcement today that famers impacted by Tropical Cyclone Niran on March 3 will now have access to $75,000 grants to get back to producing.

The Category D grants of up to $75,000 can be used to help impacted primary producers cover the costs of getting their farms operating again.

Mr Katter applauded all the people that had continued to fight over the last two months since the weather event occurred.

“To Dean Sinton, President of the Cassowary Coast Banana Growers Association, Dianne Sciacca and all those that kept the fight going – I say congratulations. These are the people, and a number of others, that continued the fight on this.

“They had a justifiable moral outrage and when you stand on your hind legs and you fight, you just might be surprised at how many battles you win. But if you lay down like a mongrel dog which seems to be what we do in rural industries all the time; well, if we do that, we deserve to be kicked.

“I just couldn’t believe that we hadn’t got this money in the first place, but it shows that if you’re prepared to fight, we fight to the death. 

“The farmer is at the bottom of the food chain – if they go down the rest of us will have no food.  So when we fight for these grants, we do it for the butcher, the baker the candlestick maker – but more importantly we do it for the people that work for these people. We do this for every single person whose income is dependent upon those farmers,” he said. 

“And the most important thing is to get them back into production as fast as humanly possible.”

State KAP Member for Hill, Shane Knuth saw firsthand the scale of the damage that had been done hours after the event.

“Whilst this is great news, it has been a long drawn out battle considering it has taken two months for the local banana growers smashed by Cyclone Niran to receive this support.

“It was clear after we assessed the damage that they would need these grants and we immediately put it to both the state and federal government. It was unbelievable that they were then short-changed with only a $25,000 grant while the flood victims in New South Wales got access to $75,000 within a week.

“Congratulations to all the fighters out there who were continually on mine and Bob’s back while we continued to pressure both governments,” he said.