Katter TV goes live

Move over Ita Buttrose and Peter Costello, get out of town Kerry Stokes, Queensland MP Bob Katter is the king of television now.

Move over Ita Buttrose and Peter Costello, get out of town Kerry Stokes, Queensland MP Bob Katter is the king of television now. The leader of the Katter Australia Party has launched “BobKatTV” on Facebook. Starting with a video on the need for more dams, Katter appears to be setting out to host a series of monologue-style videos to get his message out to the people. The monologue-style vodcasts are filmed at Katter’s desk and use a big microphone, with a BobKatTV symbol in the corner. We admit we struggled to follow much of what Katter was saying, but it included some of the old rogue’s best material. “The species I’m most concerned about are Australians because they are being wiped out,” he says in his first video. Strewth approached the MP’s office for more info on BobKatTV. Katter’s new venture seems very similar to the videos former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage puts out these days. And some of our mature readers may wonder whether Katter has taken some inspiration from former Movement leader B.A. Santamaria, whose Point of View monologues were a mainstay of Sunday morning television for years. BobKatTV certainly seems like a sign that Katter is here to stay. With Liberal MP Kevin Andrews deselected by his Menzies branch, Katter is set to be father of the House of Representatives after the next election. Despite the rumours of approaching retirement, we cannot believe Katter would give such an opportunity. He’d have too much fun with a position like that.

Sliding screens

Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka was making some very serious points on TV on Friday but it was hard to ignore the people sliding down a bouncy escape route behind her. The airline chief was talking to the good people at ABC News Breakfast about a range of issues from the end of JobKeeper to the treatment of women in the public sphere, such as ex-Australia Post boss Christine Holgate. And every time Hrdlicka spoke, without fail, there was a big “BOING!” The CEO was live-crossing into the show from an airline hanger in Brisbane. Behind her, Virgin crew were practising plane evacuations. Every time Hrdlicka spoke — every darn time — some crew member slid down the escape slide, like a kid on a really weird, aeroplane-esque, bouncing castle. It is the second-weirdest live cross Strewth has seen, beaten only by that time in 2019 when Pauline Hanson beamed into the Nine Network’s Today show live from a graveyard.

Virgin chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka on ABC News.

Finance funnies

Who says there is no banter in the House of Representatives economics committee? Liberal MP and committee chairman Tim Wilson made clear to Commonwealth Bank chief Matt Comyn that his push to get a home loan was taking a wee bit longer than his patience could deal with. Wilson made a comment about how he managed to get a “Dollarmite account” with CBA when he was a lad but he found getting a home loan with the bank more difficult. That spurred Liberal colleague Jason Falinski to tell Comyn he backed any decision to restrict loans to Wilson as he “often has to pay for his coffees”. Wilson made sure to shoot back, saying the coffees were fair trade for paying for Falinski’s whiskies. Strewth is always ready to get either of you a coffee or a whisky.

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