Temple resigns from Katter's Australian Party

THE Dawson chairman of Katter’s Australian Party has resigned, fuelling speculation the young party is struggling to finance its federal aspirations.

Former Dawson KAP chairman Lindsay Temple with Rob Katter in Mackay last year. Mr Temple has resigned for “personal reasons”. Picture: Peter Holt

THE Dawson chairman of Katter's Australian Party has resigned, fuelling speculation the young party is struggling to finance its federal aspirations.

Lindsay Temple, who also stood as the Mackay state KAP candidate last year, said he had primarily resigned for "personal reasons".

"It's a little bit to do with work, a little to do with personal stuff," he said.

But Mr Temple said there were also issues affecting the party on a managerial level which had contributed to his resignation.

"The party is that busy running its federal campaign they're dropping the ball in some areas," he said. "They're not communicating to us."

State KAP member for Mt Isa Rob Katter said the party was still committed to its goal of fielding 150 candidates from a potential pool of 200 at this year's federal election.

However, he said the party was facing difficulty due to its comparatively small size.

"The two major parties have built big war chests from their corporate and union backers and we're always going to struggle," he said.

"People that stand for us tend to be doing it more for a cause than out of self interest or self promotion which we see as great strength for our party.

"But in the short term naturally we're going to have problems with resources."

Recently, senior KAP member Bernard Gaynor resigned from the party after his senate candidacy was suspended over comments he made about not wanting homosexual teachers to teach his children.

Late last year Mackay SES controller Justin Englert was disendorsed by the party after he publicly announced he disagreed with the KAP's opposition to gay marriage.

While Mr Temple made the decision to disendorse Mr Englert, Rob Katter yesterday said as far as he knew, Mr Englert was still being considered as a potential KAP candidate for Dawson.

Mr Katter said despite his resignation as chairman, Mr Temple was also being considered as a candidate, and a final announcement was expected to take place in the coming weeks.

Originally published as Temple resigns from Katter's Australian Party