Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for the contribution, because I do want to get on to the bill. So I thank the interjector. But I was enjoying myself so much that I got sidetracked.

I was brought up as a little kid. You can read about it in my book, as I always say—$36 at every good bookstore and a moderate bestseller, I am forced to add out of humility. As a little kid I was brought up in the Labor tradition. We were not labourers or employees. In fact, on my father's side we were always wealthy and, some of our critics would say, powerful people for many generations in Australia. I will not deny that or resile from that. But when one in 31 of the people in Charters Towers went down the mine and never came back up again, and one in 31 of those that went down the mines in Bendigo and Ballarat or the mines in New South Wales and Western Australia never came back up again, my great-grandad thought it was his duty as a decent citizen and a patriotic Australian to stop that from happening. To stop that from happening, we had to form the Labor Party. There was no alternative to that, and I very proudly recall—it is in all the history books—that my great-grandad gave 3,000 pounds, which is nearly $1 million in today's money, to the strike fund in 1894. What we won at the turn of the last century was the right to arbitration. When we went on strike and tried to get decent pay, we were smashed to pieces. We were shot dead; there were three people shot dead at Dagworth Station over our fight to secure arbitration. Two weeks after that shoot-out at Dagworth Station—

Mr Chester interjecting—

Mr Deputy Speaker, I find it a little bit difficult, because the person at the front bench here is talking continuously, and fairly loudly as well. So could you shut him up, please?

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