Outspoken Federal MP Bob Katter has unleashed on Queensland’s shark management laws after a North Queensland man was killed in an attack on Sunday, accusing governments of ignoring repeated warnings from locals.
Katter said the region was grieving “a completely unnecessary, heartbreaking tragedy” and claimed communities had been raising concerns for years about rising shark numbers, particularly bull sharks.
“Another North Queenslander is dead. Another family is shattered,” he said. “And still the people sitting in cushy air-conditioned offices in Brisbane and Canberra think they know better than the people who live and work in these waters.”
Katter said he had spoken to local charter operator Gererd Pike, who reported seeing six bull sharks fighting over a hooked Spanish mackerel earlier on Sunday. “Locals have been raising concerns about exploding shark populations, which are completely out of control,” he said.
He accused governments of prioritising shark protections over human safety and vowed to push for shark-culling powers to return to the national agenda during the next parliamentary sitting. “You cannot keep telling North Queenslanders to simply accept that people will be taken from our beaches, rivers and reefs while governments tie the hands of local communities,” he said. “We need immediate changes to allow the proper culling of dangerous sharks.”
His comments come after a 39-year-old Mount Sheridan man died when he was attacked at Kennedy Shoal, off Hull Heads — about 160km south of Cairns — just after midday on Sunday. Inspector Elaine Burns said on Sunday the incident was ‘tragic’ and the man had been spearfishing moments before he was attacked. “He died from a critical head injury,” she said.
The man was part of a group of four on a 7m private boat, who were out on the Great Barrier Reef, with another person being in the water with the Mount Sheridan man at the time of the bite. It took about an hour for the group to return to the mainland, where emergency crews were called to the Hull River boat ramp to meet their boat. The man was brought ashore with critical injuries but he later died. Queensland Police said a report will be prepared for the coroner.
It is the second fatal shark attack in Australian waters in as many weeks, following the death of Perth man Steven Mattaboni, 38, who was killed while spearfishing off Rottnest Island on May 16.
