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Talking about crocodile hunting and hunters, an article from 1999 about the "original crocodile Dundee", the infamous and now deceased Rod Ansell.

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7:30 Report ABC Television

Transcript
4/8/1999
'Crocodile Dundee' man alleged killer

KERRY O'BRIEN: Northern Territory police still don't know what motivated the gunman who yesterday shot a fellow officer dead at a police road blockade. The gunman has now been identified as 44-year-old Rod Ansell who apparently inspired the knock-about character made famous by Paul Hogan in the hit movie, 'Crocodile Dundee'.

Ansell was just 21 when he became lost for two months in the wild bush west of Darwin, and his saga of survival captured media attention world-wide.

Murray McLaughlin reports on a killer who was once Territorian of the Year.

EXCERPT FROM 'CROCODILE DUNDEE': No, but would you listen to this? This guy in the Northern Territory was attacked by a crocodile.

The thing bit his leg right off, left him there to die 100 miles from nowhere and his name - get this!

Michael J Crocodile Dundee.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: It was art imitating life. Hollywood enraptured by the "man against nature tale" of the bushy's survival against the odds in the Northern Territory outback.

It was Paul Hogan's finest hour, but Rod Ansell, the real-life character who inspired the film, would always feel resentful that he never profited from the 'Crocodile Dundee' project.

RACHEL PERCY, AUTHOR: He was one of the inspirations for 'Crocodile Dundee' and he wanted to, you know, advertise that fact and he was told that he couldn't and he was very angry about that.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: The only anger felt today in the Northern Territory is that a policeman is dead and a civilian injured after Rod Ansell shot at them yesterday at a road block 50 kilometres south of Darwin.

Ansell was killed in the return fire by police.

POLICE SPOKESMAN: His name was Rodney William Ansell, 44-years-old.

Now a camera crew operator with the ABC in Darwin, Mike Atkinson filmed with Ansell for two o verseas documentaries about his life, which, of course emphasised, his outback prowess.

MIKE ATKINSON, ABC CAMERAMAN: Once we went pig hunting, off through the bush going like maniacs. The dogs detect a pig, he stops the vehicle, the dogs get off.

They chase the pig, bring it out into the open and the vehicle pulls up as close as possible. He and I leap off and as quick as a flash he speared the pig.

So, violence in that regard, but you know, shooting people's a different thing altogether.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: In 1980, Perth author Rachel Percy co-wrote the book of the saga which would launch Rod Ansell on the chat show circuit.

'To Fight the Wild' it was called and Ansell played himself in a film by the same name which por trayed how at, age 21, he survived off his wits for 56 days in wild bush near the Fitzmaurice River in th e remote Northern Territory.

Way back then, Rachel Percy detected a propensity for violence.

RACHEL PERCY: Well, he had a short fuse. He could be very forbearing. He could put up with a lot, he could cope with a lot.

But there would be a certain point at which he felt, he said, that there was no point in sort of arguing about things, saying "I'm right and you're wrong".

He'd much prefer to stand up and have a fight about it.

INTERVIEWER: Surely people go mad in the bush as much as in the city?

ROD ANSELL: Yes, they can, that's for sure. People sometimes find that it's not so much the bush, it's the human factor.

And a person can be, say, work on an isolated station, might spend six or seven months living very rough.

There's no days off, there's no party on the weekend.

There's no slipping into town, town could be 300 or 400 kilometres away. When the occasion comes, we can let fly, we usually do.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: In the 1980s Rod Ansell finally achieved the dream of running his own cattle station, near Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

ROD ANSELL: I've got a beautiful property.

I show people around it and I can use the little catch that the man who shows you around is the man who inspired Paul's Crocodile Dundee.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: But Ansell's record was sullied in 1992, with convictions for cattle duffing and assault and he had to sell up the stations, blaming government policies.

Still, the book and film of his early life inspired young readers around the country.

From Melbourne's Camberwell Grammar School, English teacher John Allen wrote an introduction to the book.

JOHN ALLEN, CAMBERWELL GRAMMAR SCHOOL TEACHER: It's a remarkable story of survival in modern Australia, quite unlike the tales of the past century or the tales of Mawson and those in the Antarctic. It was very popular and went down very well at the time.

I think many students would have liked to have spent time chatting with Rod Ansell, indeed I would have.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Lest Rod Ansell's colourful past distract from the horror of yesterday's shoot-out, let's not forget that Sergeant Glen Huitson has left behind a widow and two young childr en.

The small community of Adelaide River south of Darwin his last posting, was in mourning today.

MARK McLAY: The police in a small town like this are crucial and Glen really got along with everyone.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Politicians from both sides of politics have decried the death of Sergeant Glen Huitson.

Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Denis Burke used it today to use raise the hoary issue of capital punishment.

DENIS BURKE, NORTHERN TERRITORY CHIEF MINISTER : It's these sorts of events and particularly if we look back in recent days of the events that have happened, heinous crimes overseas and in Australia, that one can empathise with the calls for capital punishment that are resounding around Australia at the moment.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: But capital punishment is an idle debate in the case of Rod Ansell. Police fire power saw to that yesterday.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s41613.htm

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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