Malcolm Roberts said he did not have time to refute a constituent’s claims that a former prime minister was a necrophiliac or that local councils were turning their areas into prison camps under the guise of making them more walkable because he had to focus on disagreeing with the man’s call to form an armed militia “like the IRA” to replace police.
Last week, the Queensland One Nation senator headlined an event for anti-vaccine GP Dr William Bay who is attempting to appeal his license suspension to the High Court with a claim that the Australian medical regulator does not legally exist.
After Roberts spoke for nearly two hours, the “Dare to Question” event opened up to questions from the audience.
One frustrated attendee, who gave the name “Pell” and said that he was facing “15 charges at the moment”, launched into a bizarre conspiracy-laden rant which was met with applause from the audience.
His two-minute question accused former prime ministers, Crime Stoppers and the Country Women’s Association of being run by secret societies and he said his town’s embrace of the 15-minute city policy was a ruse to bring in open-air prisons. He also claimed that Paul Keating was a necrophiliac.
In response, Roberts asked his name and then professed not to know about the situation: “And this is symptomatic of our society. I can’t comment on these secret societies because I make statements based on data.”
Pell responded: “See, I want to start a military wing. I’ve got this freedom thing. Like the IRA, they always had a military wing, right? Cause they need to have some credibility. And they need to have some force. If we want to police the police, give me some frickin’ hard hitters.”
“Pell, I acknowledge your frustration but what you’re advocating is that you replace that bunch of control freaks with you, with you in control,” Roberts said. “When you are invoking violence, you are trying to control.”
Roberts ended the testy interaction by comparing the attendee to WEF chairman and conspiracy theory target Klaus Schwab: “Now you’re sounding like Klaus Schwab. Forgive me, you’re sounding like Klaus Schwab. We know what’s good for you.”
Roberts told Crikey he did not have the time to refute “every opinion I may disagree with in public”.
“I stand by the positions I take with my words and respect the right of constituents to hold their own personal views whether I agree or disagree with them,” he said in an emailed statement.
“My dismissal of any advocacy for violence, which was this constituent’s possible view, was very clear and I did not want to dilute that most important point in the limited time available.”
