Community & Business
14 February, 2024
20 years of service for Knuth
MEMBER for Hill Shane Knuth has reached a milestone serving 20 years as a State MP, an impressive feat considering only one other current MP in Queensland Parliament has achieved longer.
The Tully-born MP has served three electorates in his time, representing 19,000 constituents in the beginning to almost 42,000 currently. He has also fought through seven elections.
When asked for two words to describe the previous 20 years, Mr Knuth said travel and community come to the top of his mind.
“I strongly believe in being in the community - just getting out there, talking to people from all different walks of life and backgrounds, tuning into the real issues,” he said.
“It takes a lot of travel given the size of the electorates I have represented - I think it’s fair to say I have gone through more cars than hats in my 20 years serving!”
Knuth recalls being a candidate in the beginning he would hitch rides to different towns in an electorate bigger than Victoria.
“It was hard yakka, technology has also changed a lot over the last 20 years,” he said.
“In the beginning we used to send out flyers, communication was letters and fax, response times from ministers was up to three months, emails were so new they were seldom used and there was little to no mobile coverage.
“It hasn’t been an easy journey, they have done their best to get rid of me, including abolishing my previous electorates, but it has been an honour to serve all three – Charters Towers, Dalrymple and now the electorate of Hill.”
In his short time representing Hill, Mr Knuth lists some of his achievements as working along with the community to bring about new hospitals for Atherton and Dimbulah, the Tully grandstand, Atherton Community Centre, Innisfail Bowls Club, and the Feluga intersection.
He’s also introduced two bills in the fight for the dairy industry, finally seeing an increase in a litre of milk for the farmers.
Mr Knuth also introduced the Sugar Marketing Bill which passed, at the time becoming only the eighth Private Members Bill to pass in Queensland history.
