The seat of Traeger is a new seat created out of the North West Queensland seat of Mount Isa (minus the shires of Winton, Boulia and Diamantina) and the seat of Dalrymple centred on Charters Towers.

Given that both of those seats were won in 2015 by Katter’s Australian Party (Robbie Katter in Mount Isa and Shane Knuth in Charters Towers) Mr Katter unsurprisingly enters the election as warm favourite (Mr Katter is $1.15 to win, with the LNP at $6 and Labor at $7.50).

Nevertheless this is a political contest not a sporting event and people deserve the opportunity to make up their own minds on the candidates.

That’s why we’ll strive to give you as much information as we can about each of the candidates in the coming weeks and that’s why we are hosting the candidate forum.

The exact format and timings will be decided in the coming weeks but I would envisage we would give each candidate present three to five minutes to give their opening presentation to the audience.

We will then open the forum up to questions from the floor but there will be a few simple rules to ensure the debate runs smoothly.

I will be moderating the forum and while I will encourage robust and civil debate I will not stand for personal attacks, foul language or angry exchanges.

Nor will I accept long rants disguised as questions.

It should be possible to craft a good question that takes no more take 60 to 90 seconds to say.

People will be there to listen to the candidates not the questioners, so I will have no hesitation in cutting off any speaker from the floor who has not asked an actual question after speaking for 90 seconds.

If time permits we will conclude with a minute for each candidate to summarise their positions.

The debate will be held at the Spinifex State College hall, Abel Smith Pde, at 6.45pm for a 7pm start. There will be a gold donation at the door for a local charity to be advised – Derek Barry