Bob Katter still going hard and fast as he heads towards setting a parliamentary record

IF HE possessed the wisdom of Solomon Bob Katter may not have been in a car doing burnouts at Mareeba’s Springmount Raceway.

Bob Katter takes a ride at the Springmount Raceway in Mareeba. Pic: Supplied

IF HE possessed the wisdom of Solomon he may not have been in a car doing burnouts at Mareeba’s Springmount Raceway last week, but Bob Katter’s approach to ageing will mirror his approach to politics.

Which is to say it will be “odd’’, or at the very least whimsical – or perhaps even full-gallop psychotic.

Whatever adjectives we settle on, Australia’s 45th Parliament won’t be able to ignore the now “venerable Member for Kennedy”.

Even if he doesn’t once again emerge as powerbroker in a hung Parliament, Bob (if he wins his seat) will become an Australian tribal elder, the Father of the House with 71 years of living behind him and 41 years of representation both at a state and federal level.

Age has not wearied his longing for simpler times when children had access to firearms and a man could ignite a blaze on a public thoroughfare and boil himself a billy.

Bob Katter with his wife Susie at their Charters Towers home. Photo: Cameron Laird

Nor has a succession of dispiriting defeats dimmed his courageous struggle against petty regulation – a one-man war that might be said to have reached its Waterloo in August 2011 when the Brisbane Exhibition ruled he should not be let loose with an axe in the woodchop arena.

“This is typical – a man can’t even cut himself a piece of wood,” he roared as officials murmured soothingly of risk management strategies and public liability issues.

But the spirit of rebellion still burns within, with the snowy-haired Katter strapping himself into the passenger seat of a drag car on a balmy evening in Mareeba only last week to participate in a few burnouts.

The Cloncurry-born Katter, who is in rude health and still roams the west at a frenetic pace, won’t be bailing out of his seat mid-term if his robust constitution holds true.

Nor does he plan seeking pre-selection for that great parliament in the sky any time soon.

One of his cousins is Alex Alam, who was one of Australia’s longest-serving MPs with a total of 41 years in the New South Wales Parliament. He died at the ripe age of 87 in 1983.

Originally published as Bob Katter still going hard and fast as he heads towards setting a parliamentary record