Katter apes Newman with volunteer cabinet KATTER'S Australian Party will appoint a "shadow cabinet" of volunteers from outside the Queensland parliament to advise its three sitting MPs on policy. The party's Queensland leader Ray Hopper says the strategy echoes that of Campbell Newman in winning the premier's job from outside the parliament last year. Mr Hopper says he and the party's other two elected MPs need help, and a team of 40 "volunteers" will advise them on policy and help scrutinise legislation. He says the move will help get around the Newman government's decision to change the rules to prevent minor parties getting more paid staff. "But they cannot legislate against people power," Mr Hopper said in a statement on Wednesday. He said the volunteers would be expected to meet the same standards as sitting MPs and that he expected voters to take the volunteers seriously. "Well they took Campbell Newman seriously didn't they?" he told ABC radio. Former Australian cricketer Carl Rackemann is expected to serve as agricultural spokesman, north Queensland doctor Damian Byrnes as health spokesman, and Gold Coast train driver Dean Fisher as transport spokesman, The Australian newspaper reports. A high-profile union leader in the Townsville Correctional Centre, Belinda Johnson, will be the spokeswoman on industrial relations, the paper says. Former Labor premier Peter Beattie has previously urged the party to "do a Newman" and appoint shadow cabinet ministers from outside the parliament to cope with the fact it has just seven MPs in the 89-seat parliament. The Katter party will announce the members of its new team at 1pm (AEST).