FEDERAL independent MP Bob Katter wants to give every Queenslander the right to kill or remove deadly animals from their property.
With customary passion but little detail, the Katter's Australian Party leader announced his latest policy at a Gold Coast home that has been at the frontline of Queensland's undeclared war on bats.
The property's owner, Robyn Burgess, was last year threatened with arrest for using an air horn to scare flying foxes from the creek at the rear of her Southport home.
Flying foxes spread the Hendra disease, which is usually fatal to humans, and which claimed another horse in Townsville this week.
Mr Katter, with KAP Queensland leader Aidan McLindon by his side, said on Thursday that on winning government in Queensland he would immediately introduce legislation to provide for a flying fox cull.
"We will provide every landowner with the right to have control over his backyard," he told reporters.
"So if he decides to remove a deadly animal, like this bat up here, or a snake, it's his backyard, not the crown's.
"As a race of people we have moved away from (the idea of) 'this backyard belongs to us'."
Mr McLindon said the party had held preliminary talks about the legislation, which included how to remove, kill and identify deadly species, but would not divulge the details.
Mr McLindon and the member for Kennedy held their media conference just metres from the roosting area of hundreds of bats.
Queensland Horse Council president Debbie Dekker says a cull could make matters worse, by stressing bats and causing them to excrete more bodily fluids that spread the disease.
"Culling just wouldn't solve the problem," Ms Dekker told ABC Radio today.
"Unless you tried to wipe out the whole species and I can't think of many people that are thinking that was a reasonable thing to expect.
"Culling would probably distress the animals more and inflame the situation in that they might produce more Hendra virus."
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