QLD:Pratt to quit at 2012 Qld election

AAP General News (Australia)
04-15-2011
QLD:Pratt to quit at 2012 Qld election

BRISBANE, April 15 AAP - Long-serving Queensland independent MP Dorothy Pratt has announced
she will not stand for her seat of Nanango at the next state election.

Mrs Pratt was originally elected to state parliament as a member of Pauline Hanson's
One Nation Party in 1998 in the then seat of Barambah.

That seat was later abolished and swallowed up by Nanango, which Mrs Pratt won as an
independent after leaving One Nation in 1999.

She was re-elected in 2004, 2006 and 2009.

Mrs Pratt has indicated she is disillusioned by the political system.

"I had such faith in democracy, as they say, but I am now under no illusion as to the
fact we don't have it in Queensland and we don't have anyone who really wants to ensure
that we do in the future," she told ABC Radio.

Nanango is in the conservative heartland and Mrs Pratt's former seat of Barambah is
best known for being the electorate held by one of Queensland's most controversial premiers,
Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Sir Joh was Country Party and National Party premier from 1968 to 1987.

The seat is a must-win for the Liberal National Party if it wants to win the next election
due in March 2012, but Mrs Pratt said she hoped it would be held by another independent.

AAP crh/jhp

KEYWORD: PRATT

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