Australian MP blasted for campaign video showing him as a cowboy shooting at political rivals

An Australian MP on Thursday defended an election campaign video depicting him as a cowboy shooting two political opponents as “screamingly funny”, despite criticism in the wake of the Orlando nightclub killings.

Bob Katter, an independent MP known for his opposition to selling off rural land to foreign interests, posted the parody of an old-style Western on Wednesday on his social media accounts, ahead of national polls on July 2.

It shows two men in Labour and Liberal party T-shirts putting an “Australia For Sale” sign on some outback land and shaking hands.

The video then switches to Katter changing the sign so it reads “Australia NOT for sale”. He is subsequently seen blowing smoke from a cowboy pistol while grinning, before the camera pans to the two men lying dead.

“I thought it was screamingly funny. Political correctness council are out there,” Katter told ABC after its appropriateness was questioned just days after 49 people were killed by a gunman who opened fire at a gay club in Florida. “I don’t know what’s going on in the media. I don’t watch television, I get to bed at midnight every night. I don’t see newspapers,” Katter told the ABC.