Robert Carl "Bob" Katter (born 22 May 1945) is an
Australian federal politician.
He has
served as a member of the Australian House of
Representatives since March 1993, representing the Division of Kennedy, Queensland
. Until 2001 he represented the
National Party of Australia, but
left the party that year and continued to hold the seat as an
independent.
He was born in
Cloncurry,
Queensland
, of Lebanese
descent; the
son of Bob Katter, Sr., who was MP
for Kennedy from 1966 to 1990. He was an investor in cattle
and mining interests before entering politics.
Political career
Katter was a member of the
Queensland Legislative
Assembly from 1974 to 1992. In 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 in 1989.
Katter's father was a member of the
Australian Labor Party until 1957,
when he left during the Labor split of that year and joined the
Queensland Labor Party, which later became part of the
Democratic Labor Party. He later
joined the
Country
Party, the forerunner of the National Party. Both Katter and
his son retained certain elements of Labor political views from the
1950s, including opposition to
privatisation and economic deregulation.
While in the Queensland Parliament, Katter junior was a strong
supporter of the right-wing populist politics of Premier
Joh Bjelke-Petersen. When he transferred
to federal politics, he found himself increasingly out of sympathy
with the federal
Liberal
and National parties on economic and social issues. In 2001 he
resigned from the National Party and easily retained his seat as an
independent at the general elections of
2001 and
2004, each time ending up
with almost 70 percent of the vote after preferences were
distributed.
He is a vocal critic of Climate Change and has been an opponent
against enacting legislations 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 stating that "Are you telling me seriously that the world
is going to warm because there's 400 parts per million of CO2 up
there?"
References
-
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200908/s2653462.htm
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