Katter wants to deal the cards for Australia
23.08.2010
By: Tony Koch, Sarah Elks
KENNEDY
WHILE Australia's political situation teetered precariously yesterday afternoon, north Queensland independent Bob Katter spent much of the afternoon in the ``sniper's nest'' with his grandchildren at Charters Towers.
``Well, it's a bit boring to call it a treehouse,'' explained the man who will have a major say in who governs the nation.
But that's Katter: non-conformist, macho, unpredictable -- his own man. And it is a reason for nervousness among the kingmakers in the major parties: they cannot be sure of convincing Katter to support them. He dislikes his old National Party and many members in it with a vengeance, and said yesterday he ``feels contempt'' for the Greens.
But that does not mean for one minute that he would therefore support Labor. It would be presumptuous for anybody to predict a Katter move on anything.
He told The Australian yesterday he planned to sit down with fellow independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor in Canberra ``behind closed doors, away from you devious media, who would take advantage of us poor, simple-minded country boys''.
It will happen soon, but not today, he said, because he was too tired, having slept for less than two hours in the past two days.
``I went to bed on Saturday night thinking I was the cock-a-doodle-doo and woke up as the feather duster,'' he said.
``I do not have a leaning towards either of the major parties. It's important to go to the negotiations table with a blank sheet of paper.''
Tony Abbott said yesterday the Gillard government had lost the legitimacy to govern because the Coalition had received more of the primary vote, and Katter acknowledged that was a significant issue.
``I have no doubt there is an onus to act in an honest and sensible manner and to take in the views of the wider Australian public,'' he said.
``I will give the gong to the party which allows rural Australia to survive. We have no hope of surviving with the current attitudes and policies and regime. We need an entirely new deck of cards dealt. If we didn't use the balance of power to get a different deal for non-metropolitan Australians, I would feel ashamed of myself.''
Mr Katter said he would like to see the end of the ``duopoly'' of major retailers Woolworths and Coles as well as ``serious government take-up of biofuels'' such as ethanol (to assist his sugar producers in the north). He also thinks the nation should consider banning foreign food imports such as bananas if there is a disease risk.
As well, he wants the return of agricultural and subsidies to protect Australian primary producers, and a stop put to ``the erosion of personal rights and freedoms''.
Mr Katter yesterday blasted senior Nationals, including leader Warren Truss and Senate leader Barnaby Joyce, for what he said were personal attacks on him during Saturday night's television election coverage.
``The National Party leader made a personal attack on me and I think if Tony Abbott was watching, he would have had a very big difficulty with what was said.''
Significant in Mr Katter's maverick past was his opposition to the firearm control scheme introduced by John Howard in the wake of the April 1996 Port Arthur massacre.
Mr Katter's is a gun-totin' outback constituency, and he represented their feelings, speaking publicly and forcefully against the government. In a newspaper interview at the time, he said he was ``just the epitome of people who feel very strongly about guns''.
``I was a weapons instructor in the army reserve, own a stack of rifles as my grandaddy did and my great-grandaddy before him.
``If you come and see my house, it's built like a fortress. You retreat through one set of locked doors and another set of locked doors and there's a siren and three locks on the door and every bed has a rifle, so if we're out and the kids are at home, they can protect themselves. To leave my wife and kids unprotected because I'm away is absolutely appalling. I believe in it as an article of religious faith.''
Political watchers yesterday agreed that in the negotiations that are about to take place to decide who will govern Australia, anybody who treats Katter as a fool does so at their peril.
As one of his close colleagues said yesterday: ``Bob has some wacky ideas, says some way-out things and is almost certain to turn up late to any meetings, but he's no dill and can pick a bullshit artist at 50 paces.''
