When Bob Katter threatened to punch a Nine News reporter in August for daring to question how his anti-immigrant rhetoric squared with his family’s Lebanese ancestry, he left no doubt as to his meaning.

“My only regret was I wasn’t more aggressive with him,” Katter said, even after he’d had several days to calm down from his bizarre threat. “Far from apologising, I should have just kept going. I’ll leave to your imagination what that means.”

Barnaby Joyce, perhaps the politician closest in spirit to the 80-year-old Queenslander, seemed to be going down the same path on Monday.

Asked by the Australian Financial Review’s Phil Coorey whether he would reaffirm his loyalty to the Nationals if the party dropped its commitment for Australia to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 but retained

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