General News
8 December, 2025
Boat ramp croc shock
KATTER’S Australian Party (KAP) MP for Hill Shane Knuth and KAP Hinchinbrook by-election candidate Mark Molachino have launched a blistering attack on both major parties, accusing them of putting lives at risk through decades of inaction, denial and political cowardice on Queensland’s exploding crocodile crisis.
The furious response follows yet another terrifying recent near miss, this time at the Carmoo Boat Ramp, which borders both the Hill and Hinchinbrook electorates, where a 4m crocodile lunged from the water just metres from a 13-year-old boy and his mother.
Mr Knuth said the incident perfectly illustrated what North Queenslanders faced every day when using local waterways.
“That young boy was almost breakfast for a 4m crocodile and the government still wants to pretend this isn’t a problem,” Mr Knuth said.
“Carmoo is just one example of what’s happening across North Queensland.
“Families, fishers, and tourism operators are forced to wade into crocodile-infested waters just to launch their boats. It’s not just dangerous, it’s insane.”
Mr Knuth said successive Labor and LNP governments had completely failed to protect North Queenslanders from the ever-growing crocodile threat.
“We’ve had back-to-back governments that have done nothing but talk while crocodile numbers explode in our rivers, creeks and beaches,” he said.
“Both sides have sat on their hands for years, while locals risk their lives every time they use a boat ramp.”
Mr Knuth said the KAP was the only party with a real plan to fix the problem, having repeatedly introduced practical legislation to restore balance between public safety and conservation, including his Crocodile Control and Conservation Bill, which the LNP shamefully blocked from debate in Parliament recently.
“The LNP’s move to block debate was a gutless attempt to avoid admitting where they stand, whether they support protecting human life or continuing Labor’s failed approach that puts crocodiles before people,” he said.
“When the LNP chair of the committee reviewing my Bill wrote that ‘we don’t have a crocodile problem, we have a people problem,’ it showed exactly where their loyalties lie, with Brisbane bureaucrats and green activists, not North Queenslanders.”
KAP Hinchinbrook by-election candidate Mark Molachino said crocodile sightings and near misses had become a weekly occurrence across Hinchinbrook and the Cassowary Coast.
“Every week we’re hearing reports of crocodiles at beaches, boat ramps and waterways in the region. Only recently we saw a crocodile inside the stinger net at Forrest Beach near Ingham,” Mr Molachino said.
“Families are scared to go fishing, swimming, tourists are staying away, and locals are fed up. The government keeps talking about ‘coexistence’ but how do you coexist with a four-metre predator that can kill you in seconds?”
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