Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of all deaths, 2.3 per cent are attributable to diabetes. There should be four diabetes deaths amongst the people living in the Torres Strait and Cape York, and in the Aboriginal communities of the Gulf; there have been 18 in a period of four years. The real number of deaths over four years is around 100. Because these people get sick with diabetes, they go to live in Cairns and Townsville and are not registered when dying there.

So 100 people are dying from diabetes who weren't dying previously, because the incoming Labor government in Queensland closed down the market gardens on 28 communities. The Liberal government then banned all backyard gardens in the Torres Strait, so the people had all of their fresh fruit and vegetables removed. They do not have the money to buy the fresh fruit and vegetables because they're now all on welfare, and by the time the fresh fruit and vegetables get into the Gulf country—to Cape York and the Torres Strait—they are not fresh. On Warraber Island, seven per cent of the supermarket is rice: a Third World country! People are dying who do not have to die. I call upon the government to restore the market gardens— (Time expired)