Outspoken Independent MP Bob Katter has slammed Today show host Lisa Wilkinson - and the media in general – during a fiery clash on Channel Nine this morning over the controversial ‘ugly women come to Mt Isa’ campaign.
Earlier this week Mt Isa’s mayor, John Moloney, called for “beauty-disadvantaged women” to come to his town to find a man, where males outnumber females four to one.
The comments attracted criticism for sexism, but Mr Katter was one of the first to the mayor’s defence.
This morning, when told by Wilkinson that women were “deeply offended” and “wouldn’t touch [Mt Isa] with a barge pole” because of the mayor’s comments, Mr Katter was immediately on the front foot, accusing the media of hypocrisy.
“I think that would be one of the most stupid and offensive comments that I’ve heard in a long time on the television,” he said.
“You people are out there looking for the sexiest Olympian… Whenever you want national image you’ll run around with your Akubras, cracking your stockwhips, wearing your Drizabone, when you’re opening your Olympic Games in Sydney.
"But when we people assert who we are and what we are you find some way of twisting that around and putting a malevolent interpretation on it.”
Mr Katter completely rejected the notion that women were offended by the remark.
"Everyone I have spoken to in town thinks it's screamingly funny, exactly the same as I did," he said.
"The comment says, if you don't happen to look like Nicole Kidman, come to the Isa. You can have a lot of fun, and that says a lot of nice things about the Isa and our outback towns.
"We have a terrible imbalance between male population and female population, we have always had that problem and he has brought national attention to bear upon it.
"I am certain there will be an awful lot of girls going to Mt Isa."
He also said country people were scared of the media, after the “demonisation” of Pauline Hanson.
“The likes of people like yourself [Wilkinson] that make those comments, you took her out and put her in a steel cage like an animal for two years of her life for speaking her mind," he said.
“So we’re scared of you and we should be scared of you. You people seem to have something really against us. You like our image, you like to use it when you’re trying to portray Australia, but if Crocodile Dundee was walking around today… he’d be put in jail.”