New political animal for changing environment

brisbanetimes.com.au managed to contact 41 of the 54 KAP candidates to map their political allegiances or leanings before they joined the team.

Of those, more than half, 23, have previously been members of another political party.

And among the Liberal National Party defectors and life-time conservative voters, there are some unexpected finds - and potential political differences.

Take, for example, Mulgrave candidate Damian Byrnes, who was a member of the Greens for 12 months, or Logan hopeful Tony Karamatic who was a Labor foot soldier in the Kevin-07 campaign that thrust Kevin Rudd into power.

The party is a new political animal that has adapted to a changed environment, according to Dr Paul Williams who is a senior lecturer in politics at Griffith University.

“It says a lot about politics in recent years where old left labels and right labels, left wing, right wing mean less and less as time goes on," he said.

The party's namesake, federal MP Bob Katter, was a case in point.

He was a critic of coal seam gas, which could be considered a “left" issue. But he was also an advocate of the “freedom to hunt", which was at the other end of the political spectrum.

Eleven KAP candidates were members of the Liberal National Party before or after the two conservative parties merged.

But seven had Labor Party membership at one point, including former Labor MP Peter Pyke.

Another four had joined the Queensland Party, following Aidan McLindon, before he teamed up with Mr Katter to form the KAP instead.

The party also boasts one former member each of the Greens, One Nation, the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party, and the New England New State Party.

Three had multiple memberships including: Queensland Party and Labor; LNP and Queensland Party; Nationals and Labor.

Eighteen, including two trade unionists, declared they had not joined a political party before standing as a Katter's Australian Party candidate. The rest could not be reached for comment.

Dr Williams said the party was a by-product of the failings in the major party system, which was not dissimilar from Pauline Hanson's One Nation.

“And Pauline Hanson of course attracted votes from both working class conservative people who voted National and working class people who voted Labor," he said.

“You don't want to draw too many parallels with Pauline Hanson's One Nation but by the same token, you don't want to ignore it because the Katter Party is feeding off the same sort of politics ... of the aggrieved, people who feel left out."

He believed Katter's Australian Party was trying to be “all things to all people", which was a factor in the demise of One Nation.

“It made a lot of statements in a lot of areas and got wide appeal but it was very short on answers. It had a lot of questions but not a lot of answers and I suspect that's going to be the same thing with Katter Party," he said.

He also doubted the party's policies would be appealing to voters in major metropolitan areas.

And the lack of female candidates was a “huge handicap" in those crucial urban seats.

So far, the party has only pre-selected four women in a field of 54 candidates.

Mr Katter has vehemently rejected suggestions the party is a boys' club.

He "could have cried blood" when several would-be female candidates withdrew for personal reasons, The Courier-Mail reports.

Dr Williams said the party's “masculine ... tough male culture" would not help it pick up votes in Brisbane, on the Sunshine Coast and central Queensland areas such as Gladstone and Mackay.

“It is almost an anachronism in this day and age for them to have so few women [candidates]," he said.

“And I saw that Bob Katter's comments were that he's infuriated when people say he hasn't got enough ... because he's tried to get women up. The point is you've got to make a better effort, a bigger effort really if you say your party is representative of the electorate."