In the latest instalment of our Forget the Frontbench series, columnist Rachel Withers lands an impromptu interview with Bob Katter. It begins with being invited to pull up a chair at Katter’s pub dinner with Monique Ryan, and ends with a lift home in his Comcar. Throughout, Withers searches for the answer to one question: after almost 50 years in politics, what keeps Katter in it?
Withers’ profile — which you should read here, if you haven’t already — is a wildly entertaining insight into how Katter views Australian politics, and his role in it. And as you’d expect from one of the most idiosyncratic political figures of our time, the interview was full of gems that couldn’t be left on the cutting room floor. If we get the pleasure of reading them, you should too!
Without further ado: here’s Katter, unfiltered.
Katter on Rachel Withers
Bob Katter: Now, what’s your name?
Rachel Withers: Rachel. Rachel Withers.
BK: And who are you with, Rachel?
RW: Crikey. So I have a column these days that runs on Thursdays that’s only focused on independents and crossbenchers. And each week we look at a different person.
BK: I’m not an independent, I’m…
RW: Well, you’re a crossbencher.
BK: Yeah… What’s your first name again?
RW: Rachel. That’s all right, Bob.
BK: I didn’t pay!
RW: Oh, you didn’t pay? Oh, no, you pay on the app when you order, don’t you? How did you order?
BK: Monique ordered on the app.
RW: Oh, you’ll have to get Monique back, won’t you? So Bob, if I can just fire some questions at you.
BK: Just… this is really embarrassing. What is your first name again?
RW: Rachel.
BK: And what is your second name, Rachel?
RW: Withers.
BK: Wither?
RW: Withers. Yeah, like the singer Bill Withers.
BK: Rachel?
RW: Yep
BK: I’m gonna write it on my hand, right? If you write it down, you remember it… [writes my name on his hand] Jeez, Rachel, I go round a bar and meet 23 people and when I walk out I know every single one… That said Rachel, what do you wanna ask me?
Katter on culture
BK: A very close mate of mine, a bloke called Neil Turner, a big, boof-headed bloke, [indecipherable] same as myself. And Turner came back into the state house, very good intellect, Neil, very good set of values, too — his values were the same as mine, of course [laughs]. “You are not seriously going to spend $45 million on a modern arts centre when I’ve got railway fellas who are carting water from the local hotel to have a bath. I mean, premier, you can’t agree to this!! You can’t agree to this!!”
Anyway, one of the Liberals kept yelling out that the bloody National Party wouldn’t know what culture means. “You wouldn’t know what culture means, Katter! You wouldn’t know what culture means! None of you National Party know what culture means!” And then Turner grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him out of the seat and said, “We do so know what it means. It means agriculture.”
Katter on Anthony Albanese
RW: How do you feel about having a huge bench with Monique and Kate and Allegra? Do you think it’s good having them in there to break up the major parties?
BK: I think that the message that’s gone through to the majors, and I’m not so sure that Peter Dutton’s got the message. I don’t know Peter very well. I know Albo really well. You know, we went in together and I’ve always got on well with Albo. He was a very strong supporter of Kevin Rudd’s and so was I. Sort of brought us together a bit. But also my union connections didn’t make me friendly with Albo. We were violently opposed, me and Albo, on a number of things. He rang me up, he used the F-word 15 times out of 18 words! 15 of them, calling me an F-er.
RW: Over what?
BK: Because the seamen’s union that had joined the CFMEU was over at Coastal Shipping, whether Australian crews should be crewing those boats, and Albo didn’t agree with us. So we fought and we won, and Albo got rolled and he didn’t like it at all!
RW: This was a while ago, was it?
BK: Yeah, he blamed me for it. He rang up, a string of obscenities over the telephone. And I laughed. I said, so we won? HAHAHA. You know, another string of obscenities.
But, I mean, I sort of got trapped in there because, you know, I couldn’t just walk out on Bjelke-Petersen with the government going down. You know, I’m not a bloody runaway when they fire the first shots. You know, there’s a battle going on, and I just had to shoulder my rifle. And I’m just going to abandon my mates and walk away from the fight.
RW: But a lot of those original mates are long gone from politics and some from this world.
BK: No, that is a very good call, Rachel, actually. A very, very good call.
Katter on being remembered as an ‘ordinary Australian’
RW: The last thing I want to ask is what do you want to be remembered for?
BK: Oh, just being an ordinary Australian, you know, and that sounds a funny thing to say, but I reckon Albo and, you know, John Howard, I reckon they’d sort of be inclined to answer the question that way. You know, Hawke wouldn’t. Keating wouldn’t. Malcolm Turnbull wouldn’t.
RW: Well, you know what, I might let you go unless there’s any other final points you wanted to make.
BK: No, no, no, no. You know, I just — it’s sort of funny saying that I’m just, you know, an ordinary Australian, but I lived in a world where, you know, nine out of the 10 in my class, except for me, everyone in my class at school, their fathers worked in the railway. And I suppose the story that epitomises this best is I’d formed all the rugby leagues in inland North Queensland, and I’d spent so much time and so much of my life doing it, and it was worthwhile to do. But anyway, I was gettin’ a life membership, which I greatly prized for, and the rugby league was given a life membership, my uncle got a life membership. So this was infinitely more important to me, I couldn’t care less about a knight order, OAMs, but a life membership of the rugby league, I’d kill for that! But anyway, I’m landing in the aeroplane at the airport and the day before, the week before I’d been appointed a cabinet minister, and they had a big picture of me captaining the Tigers rugby league team in Cloncurry, and I looked very tough. It’s on the wall of Parliament House, and I do look very tough. And it’s a thorough motley crew, big blokes, little blokes, Black blokes, white blokes. But anyway, I’m captain. But it’s on the front of the Truth newspaper, the biggest circulation newspaper in Australia at the time. So anyway, I’m getting off the aeroplane to go to the dinner that night to be awarded my life membership. Bobby Charles, front row for Tigers, he started muttering obscenities at me. And I walked over and said, “Well, get it off your chest, Charlesy.” If I had to fight Charlesy, well I had to fight him. “Get it off your chest, get it off your chest!” And he said, “When were you ever effin’ bloody captain of Tigers?” “If I’m holding the football, and I’m the centre of the team, I am the captain. And if you don’t like it, well, you can fuckin’ well learn to live with it!” And I stormed off, see. But I’d only captained Tigers once! In like 15 years, I’d captained it once. And I was dirty, because I’d played A-grade in Brisbane. I was big time, super big time, you know. Come home and they wouldn’t give me the captaincy! And the bloke did give it to me, he was a much better captain than me. But anyway, it didn’t stop me from being dirty at the time. But the one game that I captained, the one game in 15 years, they took a photograph! So for all of posterity I’m the captain of Tigers! And Charlesy was right. It was the world’s greatest hypocrisy. But Charlesy couldn’t care less about me being a cabinet minister, or even getting my life membership. What he cared about was me being different, right? We’ve all got to be the same, we’ve all got to be equal, you know, Australian tall poppy syndrome. But you have to go. And when I went to Pormpuraaw, it kept reminding me of something…
