Talk:Katter's Australian Party/Archive 1

Political Spectrum
I believe it is inaccurate and an oversimplification to categorise the KAP's political position as "Right-wing". There are elements of traditional right- and left- wing politics in the KAP policy. KAP's economic policies are closer to Distributism than the traditional Right-wing and has more in common with Agrarian left-wing movements. Collincentre (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. I came to the discussion for that very reason. While the KAP's platform consists largely of similarities to current Australian center-right politics, especially on social issues, the core of the economic policy is very left wing. Renationalisation is neither an issue in centre-right or centre-left politics, it is a very leftist economic standpoint. Protectionism is also marketly different from the laissez-faire plateform of right-wing parties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.169.54 (talk) 11:10, 9 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed and seconded. Pigeonholing the party into a single category is neither easily achieved nor appropriate; while a handful of party's policies are socially conservative, to call the party 'right wing' is both inaccurate and borderline slanderous. Until someone can come along with a better description, I'm changing the position from 'Right Wing' to 'Centrist/Distributist'  --Headwerkn (talk) 11:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Even though it mightn't be strictly accurate, that's probably the best description I can think of since the attitudes and policies don't neatly fall onto the modern political spectrum of left/right. --Coagmano (talk) 21:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've made changes to the political ideologies, by adding Agrarian Socialism and removing the conservative tag, as the party's economic policies border near the far-left. Also I think it would be inappropriate to class KAP as a Centrist party. The party constitution clearly states an MP or Senator with the party can put forward their own policies, particularly social ones and put their electorate first as long as it is in line with KAP's constitution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Austrollolol (talk • contribs) 10:52, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that KAP's policies cannot be neatly called right-wing, like economically I'd describe them as quite left-wing (based on what is said in the policies section, anyway), but socially they're quite conservative. Might I propose we simply omit that descriptor from the infobox? Sort of like what's done on the Australian Greens page, as while many of us feel they're left-wing, some disagree and think their social democratic attitudes are more centrist, and as we couldn't agree, we settled with omitting it altogether. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 14:56, 21 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree that KAP shouldn't be labelled "right-wing", but I think it's odd to call their economic policies "left-wing" since they're a very narrow slice of what could be called "economic authoritarianism" that people these days won't recognise as "left-wing". They're closer to what protectionists from before the 1940s wanted, and maybe back then they would have been labelled "left-wing". I also recall Bob Katter Jr. himself dismissing the label "right-wing" on the 7:30 Report a few years back (although I haven't found any record of this).
 * The problem is that sources considered reliable have labelled KAP "right-wing", even the ABC, though they haven't been used as a reference for this on this page. I'd call it a mix of lazy journalism and a persistent tendency for people to try to fit political parties on a neat one- or two-dimensional continuum.
 * We need to either go with reliable sources or exclude the information entirely, so on this point I would agree we should exclude the "Political position" from the infobox on this page. Consensus appears to be against keeping the label "right-wing" at any rate, so I'll remove it.
 * Looking back at the history, it appears it was re-added by an IP user in June 2011 after it had been removed, edit has no summary either. It's funny that it's taken almost nine years for anyone to notice this and remove it again.
 * DpEpsilon ( talk &#124; contribs ) 09:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

"...came within 6000 votes of winning four more (seats)"
The heading is a quote from the Elections section. What does it mean? I have a theory, which I'll keep to myself at this stage, but I suspect it could be explained a little better. HiLo48 (talk) 06:53, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, User:Timeshift9 has been bolder than me and simply removed the claim. I support that action. HiLo48 (talk) 23:53, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * It means exactly what it says. The party came within 6000 votes of winning four more seats.  What more explanation does this need?  It's a very simple statement of fact, and it's sourced, so there is no basis for deleting it.  -- GertBySea (talk) 06:51, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Which 6000 votes? Does it matter where they were? (Of curse it does.) 6000 votes across the state, or in particular seats? Which seats? Source it. HiLo48 (talk) 07:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The 'source' in The Age article is a report by KAP, accompanied by Bob Katter once again claiming that someone other than the KAP was at fault for the stuff up through which the party's name didn't appear on ballet papers (despite the court findings blaming the party exclusively for that mess). It's a silly statement as the fact of the matter is that the party did as well as it did. If there were some close results the article could identify them, but including this kind of vague figure is just silly. Nick-D (talk) 07:19, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Katter made a lot of noise about this, and if it were to be included it should be as a "Katter claimed ...". The only other seat they came remotely close to winning was Thuringowa (which probably should be mentioned somewhere). I don't know which other three Katter means, but whichever they are it's pretty clear he's making use of his well-known skill for overstating the fact (remember when he thought they were going to win 20?). Frickeg (talk) 08:12, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Policies: criticism of anti-gay statements
I added some mention of the controversy around the anti-gay statements made by some candidates to the 'policies' section. The articles for other Australian political parties usually include such material in a 'History' section. It might be desirable to reorganise the article to combine some of the Queensland state politics material, and a basic background, with this info in a new 'History' section. miracleworker5263 (talk) 10:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This got deleted by someone. It already seemed suspicious that this article contains no stances on social issues, which you would normally attribute to right wing parties. Yet the info box clearly says that the party is nationalistic. This is the relevant edit. --2003:71:F53:4500:C421:5E35:6EC1:A993 (talk) 21:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Please no list of policies
Could regular editors of this page consider rewriting the list of policies into proper prose and maybe just trim it too the most pertinent five or six. Anyone wishing to know about policies should visit the parties official website. - Shiftchange (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

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Paid editors and propaganda
This article is one of many that is being wrecked by paid editors to include propaganda. Do not forget our policy is to remove propaganda of any kind. Copy and pastes of statements made by political parties, political organisations or their representatives constitutes propaganda. - Shiftchange (talk) 00:33, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * If I go to an article on a political party, one of the most obvious things I'd expect to find is what the political party supports. This is especially so for a more eccentric party like Katter's, which doesn't line up conveniently into obvious ideology. I do think it could do with a tidy up so it's not as long and forming a complete-but-dated statement of their party policies, but much of that is useful content which is totally lost when broken down into two sentences that tell you not much. This is not "paid editing" or "propaganda", and throwing slurs at editors who disagree with you on a content matter (not least being that this editor agrees with you politically) does you no credit. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 00:56, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Great but we don't copy announcements from political parties into Wikipedia because that is propaganda. We write about them in first voice. Why are you pretending about this?  We don't write "It is the duty of government to ensure bank lending creates real wealth..."  Why are you re-adding propaganda from Katter's Australian Party into Wikipedia when our policy is no propaganda of any kind? - Shiftchange (talk) 01:10, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * The article needs to include some information about what the political party supports. As I said, the content that is there clearly needs work - not least being converting it into first voice. Some of them (the example you cited being a perfect example) don't actually tell us anything about what the political party supports and can be obviously cut. But cutting everything about their actual policies is overkill - the two-line summary told us absolutely nothing useful about what they do and don't support, and getting into at least some level of policy detail is critical considering the oddball, grab-bag nature of Katter Party politics if it's to make any sense. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 01:16, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * The article needs to confirm with our policy of no propaganda of any kind, something you fail to address. It does include what you think belongs without the propaganda. Your strategy will fail. - Shiftchange (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * This makes no sense. Our article on a political party should explain what the political party seeks to do, even in the case of (as is bleedingly obvious from our previous interactions) a party I vehemently disagree with. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 01:27, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * It does in the infobox and with the section I left. We write about the policies in first voice. We don't list announcements as that is propaganda.   You seem blind to propaganda.  Why? - Shiftchange (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that we should describe policies in first voice. I also agree that we shouldn't list announcements, and that this needs to get away from being one great slab of information from when they started that's now potentially dated. I don't agree that an unsourced, vague, one-line description is better than a list of things they actually support and oppose (or a prose explanation that's equally as thorough). Happy to work with you if you're willing to come to the table, but I stopped unilaterally trying to fix these kinds of disputes after our adventures with B20097. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I want to work on the article. I want to remove the propaganda.  You reverted my edits and them claim to agree with me and keep reminding me of some past affinity.  If someone wanted to write about the political position of a political party with sourced prose in Wikipedia voice (that is, build an encyclopedia) I would be unlikely to remove it. - Shiftchange (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * No, you want to remove all mention of what the party does and does not support beyond a vague, unsourced two-sentence summary. Describing their political position in sourced-prose - as long as it is basically as thorough as the current table - sounds great to me. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 02:57, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Ideology section
Hi all. I would like to remove the ideology section, as it is based on one primary source. If there are appropriate RS, then I'd still propose that those would be appropriate under Policies, as that is how a party's ideology is enacted. Are there any issues with removing it that I'm not aware of? If not, I'll remove it in a few weeks. Cheers. - - Xurizuri (talk) 04:08, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Removing. --Xurizuri (talk) 03:16, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Protection request link
Special:permalink/1095999405. HTH. El_C 17:29, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Katter is hardly a right winger economically
Look at any of his economic policies, the guy called him self a hard leftist, and even said his policies were similar and based off 50s Labor 159.196.233.152 (talk) 14:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)


 * See my comment here. Vacant0 (talk) 17:47, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, this is WP:OR, if you don't have sources to back up the claim that the party is left-wing, then just don't add it. Vacant0 (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Political position
I'm just going to comment that if you really want to add "economically left-wing" to the infobox, then find better sources that actually state that the "KAP is economically left-wing". 1 is a blog, 2 is an opinion article written by a member of KAP, 3 is an article about Bob Katter, and not the party. Vacant0 (talk) 20:14, 12 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The rest of the discussion can be found here on my talk page. Vacant0 (talk) 12:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

The sources are perfectly valid. Bob Katter is left wing economically.
The first source may be a blog, so you can disregard that, sure. The second source is written by a KAP member. What’s the problem with that? Wouldn’t they know their own party policies best? Use your brain. The third source may be about Bob himself, but the party is named after Bob, and follows his ideology. You can argue whether or whether not he truely is an agrarian socialist, but you can’t argue that he isn’t economically left. 211.30.190.120 (talk) 05:56, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Read my comment again: if you really want to add "economically left-wing" to the infobox, then find better sources that actually state that the "KAP is economically left-wing". The sources you provided do not state that. Pure original research. Vacant0 (talk) 16:41, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Why was the content sourced to Damon Alexander's piece in The Conversation removed? GeebaKhap (talk) 12:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's already in the article (see Ref 15). Vacant0 (talk) 12:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Updates to Katter's Australian Party 11 October 2023
Hi All,

I would like to update the 'State politics' section to include the results of the 2020 Queensland state election, and also include more recent data in the 'Donors' section. Please let me know if anyone has concern about these updates.

Thanks Willw1193 (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Right-wing, Syncretic, or neither?
It looks like there's been a potential edit war going on over the political position of the party, whether it's classified as "Right-wing" or "Syncretic", so I think it's best to open up a discussion here. What is the consensus among the people here about how best to describe the party's political position? Personally, I think it would be more accurate to either describe it as "Syncretic" or to not describe its political position on a left-right scale at all, as is the case with New Zealand First. But I'm open to discussion on the topic. GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 23:04, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with your proposal: first preference syncretic, second preference no description. The sources used to place KAP as left or right too often focus on their stance regarding a single issue rather than covering the party's platform in general. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 04:59, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The party is definitely syncretic in nature, perhaps even more left wing than right wing. Bob and Robbie Katter both claim to be agrarian socialists while also being social conservatives at the same time. DarkoBekrija (talk) 07:52, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The party is right-wing as the notable sources provided cite them as such, thus I would put them as 1) right-wing; 2) syncretic. No where is the party cited as being left-wing or syncretic. MarioBayo (talk) 08:44, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hang on a minute, let me clarify something for you. No where in the article is the party cited as being left-wing or syncretic, because no such sources have been included. That's been the decision of previous editors of this page, some of whom seem to have strong personal opinions about this. That does not mean there are no such sources anywhere. Dr Troy Whitford of Charles Sturt University explicitly rejected placing the KAP on the political right in his piece for The Conversation, and describes the party's platform as a blend of social conservatism and economic protectionism and a combination of Country Party and Labor Party policy. Dr Paul Williams of Griffith University is quoted in a Canberra Times piece saying that left- and right-wing labels aren't particularly applicable, and gives examples of KAP policies that fall on opposite ends of the conventional political spectrum. That was in the context of a survey of KAP candidates, which showed that candidates had very diverse political backgrounds and were not at all restricted to right-leaning parties. Socialist newspaper Red Flag said that the KAP could "pick up votes from the left and right" and emphasised its populist platform. Luke Henriques-Gomes's article in The Guardian states the party is "Socially conservative but economically leftwing'. A Bucknell University study classified KAP as left-wing alongside the Greens and Labor. Research by Dominic Durocher of the University of Ottawa did the same. Louis Nowra, writing in The Monthly, called Katter "an old-fashioned Labor man". As for the sources already in the article, The Guardian is specifically about gun laws (where the KAP sits on the right) and dare I say that Mamamia isn't the gold standard for political analysis. Only the Brisbane Times article actually calls the KAP outright right-wing. Recent sources published around the 2022 election emphasise that KAP is first and foremost populist, which I won't bother linking to because they are easily found with a Google search. On the balance of these different sources, I stand by the fact that syncretic is the most accurate description of the party's platform. However, I anticipate that since this term has not been explicitly used by any source that I've found, it will likely be seen as original research. No marker is therefore probably the best compromise position. Nobody needs to actually prove that most sources do or don't describe KAP as left or right or whatever, there only needs to be proof that sources generally disagree or lack a description. Since that is the case, it would inappropriate for Wikipedia to favour a certain set of sources, which is what you seem to desire. Reliable sources do genuinely disagree about where to place KAP and several have explicitly argued that it defies conventional categorisation. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 09:56, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd definitely support a removal of the position in its entirety if that's the compromise we decide upon. It feels like the left-right scale just doesn't work or apply here. I personally have a preference for using "syncretic" over no label at all, but it's a compromise I'd agree to if no other solution can be reached. GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 14:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you 5225C for that information. I would still put the party's political position as right-wing as my first preference given the sources that were citing it as being right-wing, and how recent they were. If no agreement can be decided I would say its better to have no label than syncretic. Degenhardt1999 (talk) 18:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It appears as if the general consensus is that a complete removal of the position label is an agreeable compromise, I propose removing the position label and restoring the "agrarian socialist" label to the ideology section alongside social conservatism (and perhaps replacing Right-wing populism with just "Populism"?). What are people's opinions on this? GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with this solution, although I will mention that the sources that mention populism that are currently in the article specifically mention right-wing populism. There are many recent sources that just describe the party as populist without the right-wing label. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 01:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * So would you mind compiling a list of the more recent sources that omit "right-wing" from "populism" to replace the current ones? GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 01:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The Conversation in 2022, Monash University research in 2018, Social Alternatives journal in 2022, A/Prof Paul Kenny of ANU in 2019, the ABC in 2022, and the Oxford Handbook of Populism in 2017 (which says KAP "represents the rural side of Australian populism" – in my opinion "rural populist" is the best label but hasn't been widely used). 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 01:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * So we would end up with an infobox something like this:
 * Ideology:
 * Agrarian socialism
 * Social conservatism
 * Economic nationalism
 * Populism
 * While forgoing the Position section in its entirety
 * Sorry for the citation clutter, just want to emulate the article as best I can to get a clear picture of it. I wholeheartedly support this, but what does everybody here think? GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 02:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC) GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 02:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Also, we should've checked this earlier, but the position we've arrived at regarding the political position label had already achieved a consensus in 2020. The "right-wing" label shouldn't have been added back to the article without a discussion to overturn that agreement. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 03:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh good point, I didn't know to check the archive, does that mean we can bypass the "wait 24 hours" thing and just change it back now? GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 03:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it’s silly to remove the position of the party completely as it just gives the reader a lack of information. If the party has viewpoints on both sides of the spectrum, it’s syncretic and thus should be labelled as such. DarkoBekrija (talk) 08:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well as User:5225C said, there was already a decision made to omit the position entirely, and as no discussion has overturned that so far, omitting the label seems to be the best solution. GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 08:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * So that’s it? We don’t get to revise it here? What is the point of a new discussion if we are bound to the decisions of the old one? The party is syncretic in nature, if all the sources conflict with one another due to the wide array of views then by definition it’s syncretic. It’s that simple. DarkoBekrija (talk) 09:08, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well it depends on one main thing: consensus. If we can't come to a consensus other than no label at all, then that's what we have to go with. I'm personally more fond of the syncretic label, but it seems overall, people in this discussion cannot reach an agreement, and the majority of the people in this discussion have made it clear that they would agree to a compromise of removing the label. GlowstoneUnknown (talk) 09:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If it incorporates positions from both the right and the left, I don't think it's a stretch to call it a centrist party. Of course, this usually isn't what comes to people's mind when they thing of a centrist but this label absolutely applies. Bob and Robbie Katter are both self-proclaimed agrarian socialists while their social views are conservative.
 * "Syncretic" isn't a position on the left-right spectrum and calling the party either Left or Right wing is disingenuous. And it omits information to leave it out entirely. MrFluffster (talk) 07:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I agree with GlowstoneUnknown's proposal. However I do have one issue and that would be that I think it ought to be called "right-wing populist" rather than simply "populist". But that it simply my choice and unless we agree on that then I don't see a reason to change. I think leaving political position absent is for the best. Degenhardt1999 (talk) 17:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. MarioBayo (talk) 18:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well calling it a Right-Wing populist party would imply the party is right wing. MrFluffster (talk) 07:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)