He was elevated to cabinet in 1983, under Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and was a government minister until the National Party's defeat at the 1989 state election.

Katter left state politics in 1992, and the following year was elected to federal parliament standing in the Division of Kennedy (his father's old seat).

[10] As a university student, Katter pelted the Beatles with rotten eggs during their 1964 tour of Australia, declaring in a later meeting with the band that he undertook this as "an intellectual reaction against Beatlemania".

On the eighth count, a Liberal candidate's preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Katter, allowing him to defeat Hulls by 4,000 votes.

[24] In 2001, Katter resigned from the National Party and easily retained his seat as an independent at the general elections of 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010, each time ending up with a percentage vote in the high sixties after preferences were distributed.

Two other former National Party MPs, both independents from rural electorates, Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott[29] decided to support a Labor government.

However, reportedly due to anger at his decision to back Kevin Rudd (ALP) for Prime Minister following Julia Gillard's (Prime Minister) live cattle export ban (Rudd, within weeks, reopened the live export market), Katter still suffered a primary-vote swing of over 17 points.

In the end, Katter was re-elected on Labor preferences, suffering a two-party swing of 16 points to the Liberal National party.

[36] On 15 August 2017 Katter announced that the Turnbull government could not take his support for granted in the wake of the 2017 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis, which ensued over concerns that several MPs held dual citizenship and thus may be constitutionally ineligible to be in Parliament.

Katter added that if one of the affected MPs, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, lost his seat, the Coalition could not count on his support for confidence and supply.

[38] In the 2019 election, Katter was returned to his seat of Kennedy with a swing of 2.9 points towards him, in spite of an unfavourable redistribution of his electorate.

He opposes privatisation and economic deregulation and strongly supports traditional Country Party statutory marketing.

[43][44][45] As of 2020, Katter described himself as belonging to the "hard left," citing his continuing membership of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union.

He has additionally pioneered protests against imported bananas, and is an opponent of the concentration of the Australian supermarket industry amongst Coles and Woolworths.

[53] In 2017, Katter called for a "Trump-like travel ban" in Australia after a New South Welshman was arrested on terrorism charges.

[57] In 1989 he opposed installing condom vending machines in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to reduce the spread of AIDS, describing the plan instead as an attempt at eugenics, or "racist genocide".

[58] Katter is also an opponent of voter identification laws, denouncing the Coalition's proposed introduction of them in 2021 as a racist system that would disenfranchise Aboriginal communities.

Katter voted against the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act, 1994 (Cth), which decriminalised homosexuality in Tasmania.

[68] Katter occasionally identifies as being an Aboriginal Australian and has described himself as a blackfella in federal parliament, in interviews, during television appearances and at public events.

[69][70][71][72][73] Katter claims that in his youth he was accepted as a member of the Kalkadoon tribe in the Cloncurry area, otherwise known as the "Curry mob", and said he has long since felt a deep connection with Aboriginal people.