Bob Katter - Political Views

Political Views

Katter is known as an unabashed social conservative. On economic issues, like his father, Katter retains elements of socialist political views from the 1950s, including opposition to privatisation and economic deregulation.

Katter is firmly in support of indigenous labour used to build indigenous housing. In 2010 during discussion of the Native Title Amendment Bill he stated:"Your former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, in my presence and in the presence of the Mayor of Cairns and the Mayor of Yarrabah,made a commitment that the houses would be built by local Indigenous labour. So we had a commitment that they would be built by local Indigenous workers to a level of 30 per cent. I will tell you what the 20 per cent means—it means that we will be carrying the bricks and carrying the water and carrying lunch and doing the sweeping up afterwards, on $40,000 a year, and the whitefella fly-ins will come in on $80,000 a year and build the houses for us, because we are incompetent Murris; we are not capable of building our own houses. The problem for the government is that we built over 2,500 houses—again, do not quote me on the figures as I would have to check on them—with exclusively Indigenous local labour. If you think it was easy, it was not—it was pretty scary, as the minister, to take that decision. I took that decision on a number of houses, and they worked out well, so we took the same decision on a lot more, and then we did the whole program. So why does the government have to go back to 20 per cent? Why? Why can’t you create jobs for the people there?"

In 1996, Katter supported his National Party colleague Bob Burgess against critics after Burgess made controversial comments including a characterisation of Australian citizenship ceremonies as "dewogging". Katter described critics of Burgess as "little slanty-eyed ideologues who persecute ordinary average Australians." Two weeks later, Katter complained that it was "nigh on impossible" to send children from his area to boarding schools "unless you're rich or unless you happen to be of Aboriginal descent". Pauline Hanson later said that Katter would be welcome to join her One Nation party if he wanted to leave the Coalition.

In 1997, Katter advocated changing the Child Support Scheme to lessen the financial maintenance obligations for non-custodial parents. He claimed there was an "anti-male bias" in the scheme, and that "in 90 per cent of cases the bloke has done nothing wrong the woman was at fault".

An opponent of the tougher gun control laws introduced in the wake of the 1996 massacre in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Katter was accused in 2001 of signing a petition promoted by the Citizens Electoral Council (CEC), an organisation that claims the Port Arthur massacre was a conspiracy.

He is critical of climate change and has opposed enacting legislation to control emissions. "I mean, if you could imagine 20 or 30 crocodiles up there on the roof, and if all that roof was illumination, and saying that we wouldn't see anything in this room because of a few croco-roaches up there", he continued, "are you telling me seriously that the world is going to warm because there's 400 parts per million of CO₂ up there?"

Katter has supported ethanol fuel subsidies, is against the importation of bananas into Australia, and wants to smash the supermarket duopoly of Coles and Woolworths.

In the aftermath of the 2010 federal election, Katter offered a range of views on the way forward for a minority government with the support of three former members of the National Party, Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and himself, who were all re-elected as independent members of parliament from rural electorates. Katter stated his vote would go to "whoever gives us the right to survive". He presented a document titled 20 points and asked the major parties to respond before deciding which party he would support. The sobriquet 'Mad Katter' was coined by the media to describe Katter and his ideas.

On 7 September 2010 Katter announced his support for a Liberal/National Party coalition minority government.

In November 1989, Katter claimed there were almost no homosexuals in North Queensland. He promised to walk backwards from Bourke if they represented more than 0.001 percent of the population. Katter voted against the Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act, 1994/ {{{4}}} (Cth), which decriminalised homosexuality in Tasmania. In August 2011 Katter said the prospect of same-sex marriage "deserves to be laughed at and ridiculed". The following week, his half-brother Carl, who is gay, spoke to the Ten Network, saying of Katter's comments "It's hurtful, it's dangerous, it's damaging, and it's really inappropriate."