Katter doubles down on threat to punch journalist, says he should have been more aggressive

3 months ago 23

Under-fire MP Bob Katter has doubled down on his extraordinary threat to punch a reporter who asked about his heritage, insisting he should have been even more aggressive and brushing aside bipartisan condemnation as Nine Entertainment mulls defamation action against the 80-year-old MP.

Katter said he was considering seeking his own apology from Nine, owner of this masthead, after he waved his fist at award-winning reporter Josh Bavas on Thursday when quizzed about his Lebanese ancestry.

Bob Katter during question time on Monday.

“My only regret was I wasn’t more aggressive with him. Far from apologising, I should have just kept going. I’ll leave to your imagination what that means,” Katter said in an interview on Monday.

“I hope I don’t run across him again. He better examine his conscience.”

The veteran rural Queensland MP was condemned by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, senior Coalition MPs and fellow crossbench parliamentarians when he yelled that he had “punched blokes in the face for less” than Bavas’ questioning. The question was prompted by Katter’s unwavering support for the weekend’s anti-immigration rallies, despite the involvement of neo-nazi groups.

Nine Entertainment demanded an apology last week and was also mulling defamation action against Katter after he labelled Bavas a racist, spurring an online pile-on against the reporter.

There were no apparent moves on Monday by any of Katter’s colleagues in parliament to censure or condemn the independent in the House this week.

News.com was first to report that Katter’s outburst was driven in part by his difficult relationship with his father, a long-time MP whose father migrated from Lebanon, and his closer relationship with his late mother.

Asked if his family trauma contributed to his outburst, Katter suggested there was too much focus on his father’s side of the family.

“I say to people, like, didn’t I have a mother? It was from my father’s side [the Lebanese heritage] – didn’t I have a mother?” he said.

Liberal senator Jane Hume, one of many to condemn Katter’s outburst, said last week that the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission would be “looking at [Katter’s actions] very seriously”. However, it is not clear if the commission can probe the incident because it did not occur on the grounds of parliament.

In the press conference where Katter was expressing support for the weekend’s anti-immigration marches, Bavas said, “You’ve got Lebanese heritage yourself … ” before Katter jumped in, shook his fist at Bavas, and said, “You’re a racist”.

Katter repeated those baseless claims against Bavas to this masthead on Monday.

“I say to all of my fellow Australians, they cannot say to you that you’re Sicilian or that you’re French or English. We’re Australian here,” he said.

“We’re a little country. Our national identity is a sacred thing and if we lose that, we’ve lost everything.”

Katter was one of only a handful of MPs to attend the weekend march, which was condemned as hateful by the government after neo-Nazis and anti-lockdown conspiracy theorists were spotted.

“You can’t have any demonstration where you don’t get extremists,” Katter said. “But if you identify good and evil, I identify evil as Nazism. It is the epitome of evil.”

“But don’t confuse that with condemning patriotism.”

Katter’s son, Queensland state MP Robbie Katter, defended his father’s actions, saying the family’s Lebanese heritage was a “deeply personal” topic.

“If someone offends you personally and really gets up your goat … I think we should be able to defend ourselves … you’re entitled to keep asking, but we’re entitled to react to sort of stop that from happening,” Robbie Katter said on Sky News last Friday.

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