Katter threatened journalist amid anti-migration March for Australia

Maverick federal MP Bob Katter threatened to punch a television journalist and shook his fist in the reporter's face during a heated press conference in Brisbane on Thursday, after being questioned about his family's Lebanese heritage and his party's stance on migration ahead of nationwide antimigration rallies. The confrontation, outside Queensland's Parliament House, involved Channel Nine reporter Josh Bavas and came as Katter and members of Katter's Australian Party voiced support for the March for Australia events planned for Sunday.

Video of the exchange shows the 80-year-old MP interrupting Bavas as he asked about the Katters' Lebanese ancestry. "Don't say that, because that irritates me, and I punch blokes in the mouth for saying that," Mr Katter shouted, later approaching the reporter and holding his fist within inches of Bavas's face while calling him a racist. Bavas said he had been trying to ask whether Katter regarded the values people bring to Australia as more important than their country of origin. Katter declined further questions and, in a social media post later, demanded an apology for being seen as anything other than Australian.