A DESCENDENT of the Birri and Widi tribes, director of the Birriah Aboriginal Corporation and an advocate for youth in detention, Ashley Dodd will represent Katter's Australian Party in the race for Dawson.

If elected, the candidate said he would seek to create a Dawson Community Cooperative Corporation.

Mr Dodd used a farmers' electricity co-operative as an example, saying it would make commodities cheaper.

"The thing is that the people who become members of the electricity co-operative will receive their electricity at cost price instead of going through a retail electricity group who will charge extra to make their profits," he said.

"What we're saying is that it will create employment; people will have to do the billing, we would need electricity brokers, people who have to go out and sell the product itself.

"It's a way to work within the free-market system, but the ownership remains in local communities."

The candidate also highlighted Bendigo Bank as a working example.

With yet more controversy around the proposed Abbot Point expansion, Mr Dodd said there were better options on the table.

"We run the Collinsville (rail) line, link it into the Mount Isa line, the Mount Isa line then links into the Ghan, and then the Ghan runs straight to the Darwin port," he said.

"Pre-existing commodities that are out there, including gold, we run them through that inland rail and up to the Darwin port.

"That negates any shipping going to Abbot Point."

Aside from reducing shipping in close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, Mr Dodd said this would open up land west of Mount Isa for development and reduce the economic costs on local producers and corporations.

Mr Dodd also has ideas for Airlie Beach in particular, saying: "You don't want it to become another Byron Bay."

"(I will) look seriously at putting a cap on development, even with height regulations, to preserve the area," he said.

The Lions Airlie Beach Markets are also on Mr Dodd's agenda.

"Don't go shifting them off (the beach front). Those markets being where they are, that's the famous thing."