Top ten craziest Bob Katter moments, as they happened
It’s Bob Katter’s world, we just live in it. The colourful and controversial, maverick politician has entertained, offended and delighted plenty of Australians over his fifty years of public service. Here are some of the most notable moments.
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Part bush poet, part preacher and all Australian, Bob Katter’s political stylings have left an indelible mark on not just the region he calls home, but how our country is perceived on the world stage.
From a crocodile tearing a person apart every three months in North Queensland, to producing a knife live on tv in his own Crocodile Dundee moment, Mr Katter has never been short of a headline grabbing outburst or off-colour remark during his long, fifty years of service to both the Queensland and federal parliaments.
SUNS OUT, GUNS OUT
Amid an ongoing youth crime wave in his sunbaked North Queensland electorate of Kennedy, Mr Katter was due for another moment in the headlines when he boldly declared that Australia should arm school students.
Declaring that Australia was ill-equipped to handle a threat from China after the eastern nation signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, Katter demanded that high school students as young as 14 be trained to fire and load rifles in a bid to beef-up Australia’s defensive capabilities.
“If we train our young people and give them a rifle, then Australia will also have a guerrilla army ready to defend our country,” the maverick politician said in 2022.
“Every boy and girl in high school should be trained how to use a rifle, and those rifles should be stored in school armouries.”
BOB DUNDEE
In the wake of a 2018 Tourism Australia Super Bowl Ad that re-sparked interest in the Crocodile Dundee movie series that starred Paul Hogan, Mr Katter demanded a starring role, or at least a cameo, in any reboot of the franchise, going so far as to sign a petition calling for it to be revived.
But it was his own brush with danger on live television that drew the clearest comparisons to the iconic films, as Katter produced a blade during a live interview with Samantha Maiden on parliament grounds.
After being invited by Ms Maiden to produce the prop, Katter began to explain the difference between a letter opener and a knife.
“This is terrible because it sounds so pathetic, like I’ve taken a line out of Crocodile Dundee, but he pulls out [the knife] and says ‘You have a knife’.
“And I said ‘That’s not a knife my friend, that is my letter opener.”
Pressed to explain how he’d snuck the blade through parliament’s security screening, Katter chuckled wryly, “I have influence.
“Believe me, my knife is much more formidable than my letter opener.”
The interview had been about banning MPs from having sexual relationships with staff.
GRIM OUTLOOK
Ever a champion of Australian industry, it was no surprise that Mr Katter took the loss of domestic Australian car production hard. Outspoken and fiercely nationalist, Mr Katter appeared before parliament in 2020 dressed as the grim reaper, holding a scythe, with a placard demanding Australia keep ‘Holden on to Aussie Jobs’ in a bid to restart Holden after General Motors announced the brand would leave Australian shores.
Despite the grim reaper marching on parliament surrounded by a throng of classic Aussie cars, the motion was ultimately defeated without Katter being given a chance to speak, with Katter blasting the Liberal National Party for voting down the motion, saying the government’s free trade agreements had ‘destroyed our manufacturing industry’.
PIGGING OUT
Often Mr Katter struggles to rope in even his own party members to some of his more out-there stunts, so it was quite the surprise earlier this year when independent federal member for Clark Andrew Wilkie sidled up to the Parliament House press gallery, dressed ‘for market’.
The two crossbench MPs dressed in inflatable pig suits, scoffing dollar bills from a trough in a move aimed at giving supermarkets a black eye during an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.
The MPs warned Labor it risked losing voters in droves if they didn’t act now to break up Coles and Woolworth’s grip on the market and lower grocery prices.
After a change in scenery, costuming and dramatis personae, Mr Katter returned to the press gallery with a big stick, saying that divestiture powers, if enacted would be a ‘big stick’ to the supermarket duopoly.
“The big boys did not achieve 33 per cent (primary vote),” Mr Katter said at the time.
“If they do not move on this, that 33 and a half per cent that we (independents) got at the last election will increase.
READ MORE: Katter’s wildest words of 2023
KATTER THE GREENIE
Surprisingly, one of the most shocking moments of Mr Katter’s career in recent memory wasn’t when he let fly, but instead held his tongue.
In an unprecedented move, Mr Katter joined forces with Greens leader Adam Bandt and other MPs in a ‘ragtag team’, charting a course to Parliament House on board an electric bus (Australian made, of course) in an effort to draw attention to the lack of fuel security in Australia.
“A lot of people are looking on with concern as Russia and China climb back into bed together, and I get the feeling we are seeing imperialism not communism,” Mr Katter said in early 2022.
“If China embargoed our fuel, which comes from Singapore and South Korea, as they did with the urea and AdBlue for our trucks, then we are in very serious trouble.
“So, we need to refine and manufacture our own fuel here, and if we have electric cars or buses in the metropolitan cities, then that will mean more fuel for our trucks and farmers.
“If Greens leader Adam Bandt and I can agree that we need to do something for fuel and energy security, then it would be nice if the major parties can act.”
BOB VS GOLIATH
Taking a break from demanding that North Queensland be turned into a completely cut-off quarantine zone during the outbreak of coronavirus, Mr Katter instead spent his time tackling an old nemesis; crocodiles. Swinging high above 4m croc Goliath at the Cairns ZOOM and Wildlife Dome, Mr Katter looked anything but comfortable as he warned about the possible impacts the viral outbreak would have on the far north’s tourism sector.
When asked about the zip line, Mr Katter – wearing a crash helmet instead of his trademark Akubra – believed the giant croc had been “frustrated” at not being able to jump up and grab him.
“He just looked up, and thought ‘Katter’s beaten me again’.”
SIXGUN BOB’S WILD SHOOT
After experiencing a brutal 17-percent swing against him in the 2013 Federal Election, Mr Katter had to dig in his heels and fight back hard to ensure his re-election as he faced a new political reality; being one of the most marginal seats in regional Queensland.
With a six-gun in hand, and a sly, satirical bent that quickly went awry, he copped a bruising slate of criticism after unveiling an attack ad aimed at the federal Labor and Liberal National Parties, showing himself gunning down two faceless party representatives after they put up a sign stating Australia was for sale.
The off-colour political ad was defended by Mr Katter as a successful piece of satire.
“It took the book-burning brigade, the old Spanish Inquisition, the political-correctness council to get the message out there,” he said at the time.
But the video’s proximity to the infamous Orlando nightclub massacre, which had occurred just days before, upset his rivals, and other political figures from across the country.
“It’s promoting violence against people who don’t share his views,” LNP candidate for Kennedy Jonathan Pavetto said.
MAKE ‘EM CRY
Sporadically claiming Indigineous heritage, Mr Katter has claimed multiple times that he was ‘accepted’ via tribal law and has labelled himself as Kalkadoon, the descendants of an Indigineous tribe living in the Mount Isa-Cloncurry region of North Queensland.
While he voted ‘no’ during the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum, Mr Katter has also been a staunch supporter of Indigneous rights and closing the gap, proudly stating he had threatened to ‘king-hit’ a journalist and had caused a minister to ‘burst into tears’ over his anger about Indigenous disadvantage.
“I don’t want to leave this life or this job knowing those people have a life expectancy of 56,” Mr Katter said.
“I’m a proud Australian and I’m not proud of this country that has continued to elect the people that have completely ignored, worse than that, the Torres Strait.
“I’ve tried through all the ways that I have, through ministers, Prime Ministers, I’ve tried every way known to man and I failed hopelessly.
“So I’m screaming and making people cry, I’m trying to king-hit people, I don’t know what else I can do.”
LED ASTRAY
Appearing on Channel 10 TV Show the Project, and again being interviewed about the proposed ban on politicians and staffers engaging in sexual activities, Mr Katter this time managed to stay on topic, but still served up a bewildering tale of his own difficulties in office.
“I’ve had to lock my door on numerous occasions, with female staff trying to get at me and take advantage of me over the years,” Mr Katter said to nervous chuckles and groans from the audience.
“Lucky I’m a man of very strong moral fibre, or I could have been led astray.”
As the host tried to cut across him to ask for ‘tips as a single man’, Katter ruefully intoned of the proposed laws, “I need this protection.”
THOUSAND BLOSSOMS BLOOM
Of course, no recounting of Bob’s most out-there moments would be complete without the moment that put Mr Katter, and his flavourful commentary, on the international stage.
Captured on video during a press conference amid debate over the proposal to legalise gay marriage across the nation, Mr Katter serenely started off by saying that ‘people were entitled to their sexual proclivities.”
“Let there be a thousand blossoms bloom as far as I’m concerned,” A cheery Bob Katter intoned with a song creeping into his voice.
Before a stony anger took hold and he informed the world of what he was concerned about:
“But I ain’t spending any time on it, because, in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland.”
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Originally published as Top ten craziest Bob Katter moments, as they happened
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