Bill Heffernan has had the knives out for plenty of his political enemies over the years, and more than a few of them would dearly love to take a knife to him, too.
Indeed, the Liberal senator actually carries a knife around with him, though the male calves on his Riverina spread have more to fear from it than any of his political foes.
The knife in question is a handsome piece of work: a single-blade pocket knife known as an Old Timer, the uncommonly apt inscription that is set into its bone-like handle.
Farmer Bill, as Heffernan tends to be known, keeps the Old Timer in a pouch on his belt.
He has used it for years to castrate calves on his farm. He is very proud that after his last outing among the calves, he performed 130 operations without having to sharpen the blade, which remains keen enough to slice paper.
If you know him well enough, he takes some delight in demonstrating how he sets his finger halfway down the side of the blade and uses only the tip to slash the testicles from an unfortunate beast, an exercise known to rural types as "marking". A benign enough term, but the demonstration can wreck the day of a non-farm type.
Last week, however, Farmer Bill and his Old Timer wrecked the day of the security guards at Sydney's NSW Parliament House, and now state Labor Government figures are out for his blood.
Heffernan, it seems, set out to test the security system at the Sydney Parliament.
With his knife sheathed on his hip, he waltzed clean through the metal detector at the entrance without setting off the alarm.
Then he showed the knife to a special constable.
It was a clear embarrassment to the protectors of NSW's legislators, and Farmer Bill was in a mood to crow.
He was told to surrender the weapon and was informed that it would be returned when he left the building.
"Do I have to arm-wrestle the Speaker or job you to get it back?" Heffernan inquired with a straight face.
The idea of jobbing a special constable didn't go down well.
By the time the story reached the media yesterday, the Old Timer - a smallish knife with a five-centimetre blade, and about 11 centimetres long when fully opened - had become a fearsome weapon said to measure 18 centimetres.
The Speaker of the NSW lower house, Richard Torbay, declared he had referred the matter to federal authorities.
"If you start doing this sort of activity at an airport or other high-profile buildings like a Parliament, you do face charges," he said.
"It is obviously a very poor example, particularly for someone in public life, to be undertaking these sorts of atrocious (actions). Quite frankly, it is foolish and disgraceful behaviour."
In fact, Heffernan accidentally carried his knife through an airport a couple of years ago and regularly wanders the halls of Canberra's Parliament House with his trusty Old Timer on his belt, and has never been charged.
Farmer Bill wasn't commenting yesterday.
But the special constable and the NSW Speaker might consider themselves fortunate that they aren't bully calves.
And they might consider upgrading their Parliament's metal detectors.
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