The Register of Members’ Interests — where MPs disclose any gifts, investments, events they’ve charged the taxpayer for, etc — can sometimes be a fascinating and revealing read. When it reveals the high proportion of landlords who are tasked with improving issues around housing affordability, let’s say. Or that Kevin Rudd was among the hundreds of people to contribute to Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s lawsuit against former Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm.
And sometimes, it’s about Bob Katter.
The longtime independent MP for Kennedy interacts with language as the rest of us might interact with one of the crocodiles that tear someone to pieces every three months in North Queensland: a great deal of energy is expended, but no one watching can predict what’s going to happen next.
Katter’s register, updated yesterday and first spotted by Guardian Australia’s Josh Butler, is in some ways very candid — “in mining — nothing definite at this stage, but I intend to take up old mining tenements discovered by myself prior to going into Parliament … but there are no specifics at this stage”.
In other ways, it is more opaque. Under the list of shareholdings, in the section dedicated to anything pertinent owned by the member’s spouse or partner, he says: “She does not provide me with this information — regards this as personal business and I respect her wishes in these matters”.
We love that they have such healthy and defined boundaries.
Katter also lets us know that he “may have some interest in cattle operations in the gulf”, which, for all we know, is using interest in the other sense of the word, and is less a declaration and more general conversation.
Love your work Charlie!