Every time Bob Katter walks past the portrait of Charles McDonald, the first member for Kennedy who became Labor’s first Speaker of the House in 1910, he salutes the splendidly moustachioed pioneer with a raised fist in honour of “the great man”.
On Thursday, Katter was in the hall to unveil his own portrait, commissioned to sit alongside the likenesses of royals, governors, speakers and prime ministers, to honour his half-century of service as an MP – 18 years in Queensland’s parliament, and then 32 years so far representing his vast, far-north Queensland electorate.
Bob Katter admires the portrait as artist David Darcy looks on.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Early rumours that Katter would attend the event in his inflatable pig suit were dashed: he wore the black three-piece suit that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the crowd was inspired “by Bob’s belief that James Garner looked good in one in Maverick”, the 1950s TV western about canny rogues who shoot from the hip.
At 80, the voice is not as robust as it was eight years ago when Katter made world headlines segueing from same-sex marriage to deadly crocodiles, but he came to the podium hinting he’s still ready for a fight, or as he terms it, going “out the back of the pub”. This may or may not be a metaphor.
“I’ve been at the back of the pub three, four times. One of them bent my nose a bit,” he said. “I’ll move on.”
He did not. Instead, peering through his reading glasses, he said: “A matter of honour is part of the Australian way … and if I got a bit confrontational with a bloke a few weeks ago, ah well, you know, out the back of the pub, mate.”
Bob Katter and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shake hands in front of the former’s portrait.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
So no apology for his unprovoked threat to punch Nine journalist Josh Bavas in the mouth in August for asking about the MP’s Lebanese heritage days before the nation’s big anti-migration marches.
Instead, Katter paid tribute to Katters of old “famous for their fighting”, to forebears who had served in Gallipoli, been held in Changi, or simply sat with their guns at Cloncurry airport ready to shoot any Japanese plane out of the sky.
It was a speech as sprawling as his electorate, strong on memories of political battles past, as he celebrated his first leader, former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, as a superhero and both John Howard and Albanese as “ordinary Australians”, his highest compliment.
Both fellow Queenslander Milton Dick, the current Speaker, and Albanese complimented painter David Darcy for somehow getting the restless octogenarian to stand still long enough to be painted.
“I’m not sure you can point out what constraints had to be used at times,” Albanese asked Darcy, who took thousands of photographs of Katter before he rendered him in royal blue suit, clutching his trademark hat in front of corrugated iron reddened with rust.
As the prime minister noted: “One of the things about Bob is that he’s able to bring people together from across the political perspective who might not agree with Bob’s views all the time – some might not agree with Bob’s views on any of the times – but who respect that he is, in that most Australian term, fair dinkum.”
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