Bob Katter
Robert Bellarmine Carl Katter is an Australian politician who has served as a member of parliament for the Queensland division of Kennedy since 1993 and father of the House since 2022. He was previously active in Queensland state politics from 1974 to 1992, holding various ministerial positions in the Bjelke-Petersen, Ahern, and Cooper governments.
Katter was born in Cloncurry, Queensland. His father, Bob Katter Sr., was also a politician. Katter was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly at the 1974 election for the electorate of Flinders. He was appointed to cabinet in 1983 under Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and served a government minister until the National Party's defeat at the 1989 election.
Katter left state politics in 1992, and the following year was elected to federal parliament, sitting for the division of Kennedy, his father's former seat. He resigned from the National Party in the lead-up to the 2001 federal election, and has since been re-elected several times as an independent and as a member of Katter's Australian Party. His son, Robbie Katter, is a state MP in Queensland, the third generation of the Katter family to become a member of parliament.
Early life
Robert Bellarmine Carl Katter was born on 22 May 1945 in Cloncurry, Queensland. He is the eldest of three children born to Robert Cummin Katter and Mabel Joan Katter. After his mother's death, Katter's father had three children with his second wife, including Carl Katter.Katter's father was raised in Cloncurry, where he ran a clothing shop and managed a local cinema. He was elected to Cloncurry Shire Council in 1946, and later to federal parliament in 1966. Katter is of Lebanese descent through his paternal grandfather, Carl Robert Katter, who was born in Bsharri and immigrated to Australia with his parents in 1898. He was naturalised in 1907, after initially being refused naturalisation under the White Australia policy.
Katter received his early education in Cloncurry, where he was one of only six at his school who completed Year 12 education. He attended Mount Carmel College in Charters Towers, and went on to the University of Queensland, where he studied law, but later dropped out without graduating. While at university, Katter was president of the University of Queensland Law Society and St Leo's College. As a university student, Katter pelted the Beatles with rotten eggs during their 1964 tour of Australia, declaring in a later meeting with the band that he undertook this as "an intellectual reaction against Beatlemania". He also served in the Citizens Military Forces, with the rank of second lieutenant.
After his military service, Katter returned to Cloncurry, where he worked in his family's businesses, and as a labourer at the Mount Isa Mines.
State politics (1974–1992)
Katter's father was a member of the Labor Party until 1957, when he left during the party's split that year. He later joined the Country Party, now the National Party. The younger Katter was a Country Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1974 to 1992, representing Flinders in north Queensland. He was Minister for Northern Development and Aboriginal and Islander Affairs from 1983 to 1987, Minister for Northern Development, Community Services and Ethnic Affairs from 1987 to 1989, Minister for Community Services and Ethnic Affairs in 1989, Minister for Mines and Energy in 1989, and Minister for Northern and Regional Development for a brief time in 1989 until the Nationals were defeated in that year's election.Katter was a strong supporter of Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In August 1989, he resigned abruptly from the cabinet of Bjelke-Petersen's successor, Mike Ahern, along with fellow cabinet ministers Russell Cooper and Paul Clauson. Their resignation was reportedly an attempt to depose Ahern as party leader. Bjelke-Petersen subsequently endorsed Katter to succeed Ahern as leader and premier.
Katter returned to cabinet after only a month, following Cooper's successful ousting of Ahern in September 1989. As mines minister, he was the subject of a no-confidence motion from the Queensland Chamber of Mines in November 1989, following his proposed changes to mining legislation that were perceived as favouring the interests of graziers over mining companies. His term as a minister ended following the government's defeat at the 1989 state election.
Federal politics (1993–present)
Nationals MP (1993–2001)
Following his father's retirement from federal parliament, Katter was an unsuccessful candidate for National Party preselection for the seat of Kennedy prior to the 1990 federal election.Katter did not run for re-election to state Parliament in 1992. He ran as the National candidate in his father's former seat of Kennedy at the 1993 federal election, facing his father's successor, Rob Hulls. Despite name recognition, Katter trailed Hulls for most of the night. On the eighth count, a Liberal Party preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Katter, defeating Hulls by 4,000 votes. He would not face another contest nearly that close for two decades.
In 1994, Katter advocated against the Human Rights Act 1994, a federal law that bypassed Tasmania's anti-gay laws, claiming the government was "helping the spread of AIDS" and legitimizing "homosexual behavior". He also believed the laws jeopardized states' rights in Australia.
Katter was re-elected with a large swing in 1996, and was re-elected with a similar margin in 1998. However, after he transferred to federal politics, Katter found himself increasingly out of sympathy with the federal Liberal–National coalition due to his disagreements with its neoliberal stances on economic and social issues; this led to his eventual resignation from the National party in 2001.
Independent MP (2001–2011)
Following his resignation from the Nationals, Katter easily retained his seat as an independent at the general elections in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010, each time winning with a percentage vote in the high sixties after preferences were distributed.In the aftermath of the 2010 hung federal election, Katter offered a range of views on the way forward for government. Two other former National Party MPs, both independents from rural electorates, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott decided to support a Labor government. Katter presented his 20 points document and requested for the major parties to respond before deciding which party he would support. As a result, he broke with Windsor and Oakeshott and supported the Liberal–National coalition for government. On 7 September 2010, Katter announced his support for a Coalition minority government.
Katter's Australian Party (2011–present)
On 5 June 2011, Katter launched a new political party, Katter's Australian Party, which he said would "unashamedly represent agriculture". He made headlines after singing to his party's candidates during a meeting on 17 October 2011, saying it was his "election jingle".At the 2013 election, however, Katter faced his first serious contest since his initial run for Kennedy in 1993. He had gone into the election holding the seat with a majority of 18 percent, making it the second-safest seat in the country. However, reportedly due to anger at his decision to support Kevin Rudd for prime minister following Julia Gillard's live cattle export ban, Katter still suffered a primary-vote swing of over 17 points. In the end, Katter was re-elected on the preferences of Labor voters, suffering a two-party swing of 16 points to the Liberal National Party.
At the 2016 election, Katter retained his seat of Kennedy, with an increased swing of 8.93 points toward him.
On 15 August 2017, Katter announced that the Turnbull government could not take his support for granted in the wake of the 2017 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis, which ensued over concerns that several MPs held dual citizenship and thus may be constitutionally ineligible to be in Parliament. Katter added that if one of the affected MPs, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, lost his seat, the Coalition could not count on his support for confidence and supply.
In November 2018, Katter secured funds for three inland dam-irrigation schemes in North Queensland.
At the 2019 election, Katter was returned to his seat of Kennedy with a swing of 2.9 points towards him, in spite of a redistribution of his electorate. In the 2022 election, he was re-elected again, and became the Father of the Australian House of Representatives following the retirement of Kevin Andrews.
In July 2024 it was announced that a portrait of Katter has been commissioned to be hung in the federal parliament. It was unveiled in November 2025.
At the 2025 election, he was re-elected at a margin of 31.5 points and a swing of 2.65 points towards him.
Political views
Katter is an agrarian socialist and social conservative. Like his father, his views on economic matters echo 1950s "Old Labor" policy as it was before the 1955 Labor Party split. He opposes privatisation and economic deregulation, and strongly supports traditional Country Party statutory marketing. In 1994, he cited his political heroes as ALP figures Jack Lang and Ted Theodore and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, but said Lang was ultimately a failure and he was "aiming to be a John McEwen". The sobriquet 'Mad Katter' was coined by his opponents to describe his nationalistic developmentalism.As of 2020, Katter described himself as belonging to the "hard left", citing his continuing membership of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union. In a 2022 interview with The Chaser, Katter claimed that he had never pledged allegiance to the Queen of Australia when entering parliament.
Abortion
In 1980, Katter seconded a motion by Don Lane calling on the Queensland state government to "protect the lives of unborn Queensland children being killed by abortion".In 2006, Katter voted against a federal bill which would increase the availability of abortion drugs.