Bob Katter likens fall of taxi industry as modern day Magna Carta dilemma

Delivering a speech in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the Far North Queensland MP claimed class actions remained the only protection for workers against big foreign companies attempting to thwart local industries.

The political veteran said Uber had destroyed the Sunshine State's taxi industry and in the same breath, labelled the Queensland government as a brutal regime "completely out of control".

Proposed legislation is before the parliament to tighten class action criteria brought upon companies. Mr Katter is against the amendment.

"God bless Magna Carta, God bless those men that died to deliver these freedoms and rights to us," Mr Katter said. "And the class action is our way of getting back."

Mr Katter then began explaining to the House the history of the Magna Carta.

"The Magna Carta was one of the most important documents in human history, because up till then, brutal warlords became kings and they did what they liked," he said.

"So you can't go around destroying people's lives, burning their haystacks, taking their daughters, taking away their property rights, throwing them in jail without any due process of law that ceases with Magna Carta.

"The history since Magna Carta has been a fight to keep those freedoms that we won that day."

The Magna Carta reference was then linked to Queensland's taxi industry, claiming both sides of politics were puppets of big foreign corporations seeking to diminish the rights of the people and take money from Australia.

"This legislation has come from big corporations, and thanks to the free market policies of that side of the house and that side of the house ... almost every big corporation in Australia is foreign owned."

"So if you take the money off to taxi drivers, if you take 2, 3, 4 thousand million dollars off the hard working owner operator tax drivers and hand it over to a foreign corporation, then history will pass a judgement on you.

"And every state government in Australia did that. They are the handmaidens of the big corporations. Uber - a foreign corporation wanted control and they got it."

The member for Kennedy also took a swipe at the Palaszczuk government, saying it did not protect nor compensate taxi owners which saw a dramatic fall in the value of owning a licence.

"In Queensland, that was the brutality of a regime that is completely out of control to destroy the taxis," Mr Katter said.

He then threatened anyone who attempted to cross him or hard working Australians.

"When you do it to us we will attempt to get even with you personally," the maverick MP said.

"And if that's a threat I most certainly hope it is taken that way and I would like you to record my own personal involvement in carrying out that get square."

Watch Katter's full speech here:

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