I interviewed Bob Katter on the budget. Things got awkward, fast |
I interviewed Bob Katter on the budget. Things got awkward, fast
May 24, 2026 — 5:01am
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One of the more unexpected moments during my trip to Canberra for last week’s federal budget was when the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, invited me into his parliamentary office for an interview.
The word “interview” should be used loosely because there was little of the back-and-forth conversation you’d expect from a standard politician. Rather, “the Mad Katter”, as he’s fondly known to his constituents, mostly talked at me.
While I was there to discuss key announcements from the budget handed down the day earlier, Katter was – as he’s well known for – more interested in marching to the beat of his own drum.
No matter how many times I tried to ask questions about basic everyday things that Australians were talking about – such as the cost of groceries or fuel prices – the chat simply went where Katter wanted it to go, even if it was impossible to understand how his answer linked with what I’d just asked.
It was when I raised his interest in expanding the mining sector, however, particularly in his home state of Queensland, that things got especially interesting.
Before I could ask him about his economic interest in that proposal, Katter cut me off to say, “It’s to get you enough money so that you can stay home and have some kids like every other Australian mother has done for the last 200 years. Which you can’t do now, it’s not an option that’s available to you. Whether people want to do it or not, I just want to give them the option.”
One of the things that frustrates me about what Katter said is that it’s broad enough to be both true and false at the same time.
As a woman who was working at that moment, and who had two young children at home being cared for by their dad, it was pretty awkward.
I wondered what his female staff, as well as the........