From Jericho to Babinda, Shane Knuth has seen it all in 20 years

Shane Knuth might joke about fighting through seven elections, two electoral boundary changes and representing three different electorates during his political career to date, but doing the hard yards has earnt him the distinction of 20 years in politics.

The Hill MP entered parliament as the National Party Member for Charters Towers in February 2004 after 19 years as a rail worker, then successfully contested the new seat of Dalrymple in 2009 before resigning from the LNP in 2011 and joining Katter's Australian Party.

When Dalrymple was abolished in a redistribution, Mr Knuth stood for and won the new seat of Hill in 2017 with a massive swing of nearly 15 per cent.

The 57-year-old Tully-born MP recalls his first days in parliament, meeting people who had been ministers in the Bjelke-Petersen and Goss governments.

"Some of them had been there 17 years and I thought, gee, they're old," he laughed.

He believes he's the second-longest-serving MP in the Queensland parliament at present, and said his passion for rural and regional Queenslanders and their issues was why he was still there.

"I believe in doing things the old-fashioned way of travelling, listening and talking to people from all different walks of life," he said. "I take pride in taking on issues no matter how large or small."

In the early days, that meant many nights driving from one end of his electorate larger than Victoria to the other, pulling up and sleeping on the side of the road, showering at a caravan park, and then arriving on time for events such as student induction ceremony.

"It takes a lot of travel given the size of the electorates I have represented," Mr Knuth said.

"I think it's fair to say I have gone through more cars than hats in my 20 years serving.

"Technology has also changed a lot over the last 20 years.

"In the beginning we used to send out flyers, communication was letters and fax, response times from ministers was up to three months, emails were so new they were seldom used, and there was little to no mobile coverage."

Mr Knuth went from representing 19,000 constituents in the beginning to almost 42,000 currently and said one of the hard things about serving three different electorates was getting to know "about 20,000" new constituents just after he'd become familiar with the issues of the people he had been representing.

Two of his memorable achievements include introducing two Bills in the fight for the dairy industry, finally resulting in an increase in the price of a litre of milk for farmers.

He also introduced the Sugar Marketing Bill which, when passed, was only the eighth Private Members Bill to pass in Queensland history.

"I strongly believe in being in the community - just getting out there, talking to people from all different walks of life and backgrounds, tuning into the real issues," he said.

As far as the future goes, Mr Knuth recalled his days playing for the Charters Towers Miners in the North Queensland A grade rugby league competition.

"We won the grand final in 1996 and I finished off well," he said. "I know I don't have that 12-hour endurance any more; I'm pacing myself now, but I do still have plenty of energy to keep going."

If his stamina holds out, he may even see himself holding the balance of power in a future Queensland government.