Naaman Zhou 

Bob Katter reaps the Twitter whirlwind after Canberra stunt dies a lame death

The federal MP’s Grim Reaper costume earns him comparisons to Star Wars villain Emperor Sheev Palpatine
  
  

Bob Katter dressed as the Grim Reaper to protest the death of the Australian car industry on the forecourt of parliament house in Canberra
‘I feel like death today’: Bob Katter dressed as the Grim Reaper to draw attention to the death of Australia’s car industry. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

On Thursday morning, the federal MP for Kennedy, Bob Katter, said he was not feeling very well. Worried constituents asked if he had contracted Covid-19.

A few hours later, the more reasonable explanation emerged – he was simply dressing up as the Grim Reaper to introduce a motion about saving the Australian car industry.

As the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union pointed out he had copied their idea from four years earlier, Katter stood outside parliament house in a hooded robe, and a plastic scythe potentially bought for $21.09 from Amazon.

“My father bought one of the first Holdens built in Queensland,” he said. “Now the bunch of dummies that occupy the place behind me here, they stood aside and watched every single secondary industry [die].

“We’ve got to do some reaping now,” he said, swinging the scythe.

Online, the attention-grabbing stunt drew comparisons to Emperor Sheev Palpatine – the villain of the Star Wars series of films, the comical character Death from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld fantasy series, and many others.

Katter’s costume now joins the long list of stunt costumes in Australian politics. Just one day earlier, the Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick entered parliament dressed as a bright orange submarine.

In 2008, the then Family First senator Steve Fielding dressed up as a beer bottle for a motion that would extend South Austraila’s bottle deposit scheme to the whole country.

The chronic costume-wearer and former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon has also worn pyjamas, a big sign that said “Yep, it’s me, Nick Xenophon”, and walked around with a literal cash cow.

It’s also not the first time that a political statement has been made by dressing up as the Grim Reaper.

In May, the American lawyer Daniel Uhlfelde stalked the hot Florida beaches dressed as the spectre of death, as a protest against them opening up too soon.

He told the Guardian: “I’m worried about the pandemic getting out of control and killing a lot of people … I couldn’t sleep at night [if I just did nothing].”

In 2007, The Chaser also memorably stalked the annual ALP national conference dressed as the ghost of Mark Latham, harassing the future prime minister Kevin Rudd, and asking where the nearest taxi driver was.

 

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