KAP state leader Aidan McLindon says that if successful in its campaign to form majority government, the party will move within 12 months to have negotiations between dairy farmers and processors supervised.

While Mr McLindon and KAP patriarch Bob Katter insist the organisation is on track to win power on March 24, polls estimate its support at just four percent. Commentators say the KAP is unlikely to win more than four Queensland seats.

“Agriculture in Australia is on its knees at the moment and nowhere is this more evident than in the dairy industry,” Mr McLindon said. “Now we have a policy that will inject some life back into dairying and into agriculture in general.”

The policy was announced by the Australia Party’s Dalrymple MP, former LNP member, Shane Knuth. “We need action now,” he said. “We can't sit back and expect markets will sort this mess out while our dairy farmers are exiting the industry at a rapid pace.

“It's not just producers and small businesses that suffer but massive flow-on effects have been devastating to communities across the Atherton Tablelands.”

Mr Knuth said basic economics dictate that farmers who do not receive more for their products than it costs to produce them will go broke. The KAP had a ‘long term goal’ to reduce the market share of the retailers, Woolworths and Coles, which were undermining small business and ruining farm viability.

“Farmers need greater bargaining power to negotiate farm-gate prices because deregulation has clearly failed,” he said.