A crossbench threat to block the Queensland budget if the state's north doesn't get a bigger share of the $35 billion infrastructure plan isn't actually a threat at all.
That's according to Katter's Australian Party (KAP) MP Rob Katter, who insists he and other north Queensland crossbenchers are simply using their leverage in a hung parliament to benefit their electorates.
Mr Katter, his KAP colleague Shane Knuth and Labor defector Rob Pyne have signed a letter sent to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk telling her the state infrastructure plan is "skewed heavily in favour on infrastructure projects for southeast Queensland".
The letter demands a new plan, indicating the current one ignores job-creation opportunities in regional and rural Queensland.
"As such, we are writing to give adequate notice to your government that we cannot support any supply or appropriation bills that would facilitate the plan in its current form," the letter reads.
Mr Katter insisted that wasn't an ultimatum threatening the minority government's budget, to be handed down in June.
"We're just here to say there's no threats to the government," he said at the start of a press conference on Friday.
But when pressed further on what his northern cross bench alliance would do if the government didn't revise the infrastructure plan, Mr Katter conceded blocking the budget was an option.
"All I'd be prepared to say is we'd have a big problem," he said.
Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, the architect of the plan, on Friday ruled out changing it.
"Absolutely not," she said.
Ms Trad questioned why the crossbenchers weren't happy, particularly given 70 per cent of about $500 million in new funding in the plan went to areas outside the state's southeast corner.
"So I say to the crossbenchers, do they really want to stop those projects going ahead in regional Queensland?" Ms Trad said.
The stand-off comes after Ms Palaszczuk last week threatened to call an early election if anyone got in the way of her government's job-creating agenda, following Mr Pyne's resignation from Labor.
It prompted the cross bench alliance to announce they'd support a Lawrence Springborg-led Liberal National Party Government if the premier did so before serving at least half of her term.
Mr Katter on Friday was unapologetic for potentially forcing Ms Palaszczuk into an early election that could prompt a change in government.
"We've got to do what we've got to do in parliament," he said.
But the point could be moot anyway, with the opposition not committing to back the crossbenchers' crusade to potentially block the budget.
"I think we need to see what happens first before we go down any path that was quite that drastic," opposition frontbencher Tim Nicholls said.
