Thursday 20 October 2011

The Clayton's Katter: The MP when you haven't got an MP

The Power Index reports that Bob Katter who now leads his own Australian Party, has been absent from parliament nearly 50% of all votes.

Darren DJ Hunt is running for Katter's mob in Cairns, along with Brendan Fitzgerald for Barron River.

Katter's new paradigm appears to be 'wagging parliament'...
  • "Every vote in a hung parliament counts", so the mantra goes – yet Bob Katter has been absent for almost half of all parliamentary votes since the last election.

    The maverick Queensland independent has been absent for 78 divisions, or 45% of all votes, in the hung parliament, according to a paper by the Parliamentary Library.

    By contrast, Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie did not miss any votes. Rob Oakeshott missed seven, Tony Windsor 15 and WA National Tony Crook nine.

    Bob Katter's acting chief of staff, Jen Eliot, told The Power Index this morning that she believed most of the votes were on procedural matters. "We don't play parliamentary games," Eliot said. "We don't involve ourselves in any of that rubbish with sessional and standing orders."

    However according to analysis by consultancy firm Hawker Britton, 45% of the votes that Katter missed were on "substantive" issues such as the passage of legislation and creation of parliamentary committees.

    Katter's staffers are still sifting through the data and will soon release a more detailed response. The Parliamentary Library study also reveals that, despite backing Tony Abbott to form government, Katter has voted with the ALP 49 times and the opposition 45 times over the past year.

    Katter, MP for the far-north Queensland electorate of Kennedy, voted against the government's carbon tax package today, but supported a separate bill that sets up a $300 million compensation package.

3 comments:

Terry Vance said...

It has always been a highly successful political ploy to avoid being in Parliament when controversial issues are being debated and voted on. Then, the wily cunning MP can always say to his voters who supported the issue, "Oh, you know I would have voted for it, would I to God, if I was there." Then they would say the opposite to their voters who opposed the issue. I believe these MPs were once known as the "Would I to God" members. Voters just love 'em because they always find the politician thinks along the same lines as they do.

portmultimedia said...

I think you will find that Bob's vote in any of these situations would have made no difference to the outcome and if he had more pressing issues to deal with like his effort in repairing live export trade so the farmers didnt have to go on the dole or the rampant CSG issue he would have been there. The man works like a bloody dog and is no where near as silly as he makes himself look sometimes. I can promise this, if he wasn't in there voting on an outcome he couldn't change, why shouldn't he be somewhere where he can make a difference. I can say this, he wasn't on holidays or sitting on his behind that's for sure.

:Kevin-John: Morgan. said...

I have been to this famous public viewing "gallery" in Canberra, and watched the daily goings on and utter dribble in parliament, and I find that Bob Katter is doing what EVERY politician SHOULD be doing, staying in touch with their electorate.
I have witnessed these so-called "divisions" with votes, and have also witnessed the way it is done, watching these people pretend to be serious.
These "parliamentarians", need to get off their proverbial arses, get out of that disgusting building, and get back to their own electorates, where they may just find the voters at the moment are "not happy Jan".
If we could also shoot ALL the lawyers who pretend to be concerned with the issues in the various electorates, and then decide to be politicians, I do believe we would have a better choice of our representatives.
Bob knows exactly what he is doing, and also knows there are FAR too many days spent by these bludgers of society, in a waste of money building, wasting time.