First Nations people in central Queensland say the state government is inflaming local tensions by pushing ahead with plans to meet with the former leader of a far-right “patriots” group, who was booted off Facebook after leading a mob to surround the Rockhampton home of an Indigenous teenager.
Guardian Australia on Tuesday revealed that the ringleader of the group, Torin O’Brien, is the former president of a group that regularly posted offensive anti-Islam content online.
O’Brien referred to himself online as part of the “Infidel Legion” and made comments calling Muslim people “knuckle draggers”.
Last week, he posted the names and photographs of two Aboriginal young people, believed to be teenagers, on Facebook and accused them of criminal activity. O’Brien then corralled locals to attend their home on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Facebook deleted O’Brien’s profile for breaching the platform’s community standards, while Labor MPs defended the decision to meet with him. The former One Nation candidate, who was portrayed as an “anti-crime crusader” in some media reports, was invited to sit down “with police and other stakeholders”, as community tensions related to youth crime escalate.
Alwyn Doolan, a Gooreng Gooreng and Wakka Wakka man from the Aboriginal community of Woorabinda, west of Rockhampton, said the government had legitimised a “mob”.
“The community is very wary,” Doolan said.
“This fella shouldn’t have any dealings with government and I don’t understand why Annastacia Palaszcuk is not out clearly condemning this as well.”
Doolan said Aboriginal people in the community were “looking over their shoulder” and worried about the potential of being misidentified or subject to violence.
O’Brien has been contacted for comment. The Facebook group he created – to organise community members to go to the homes of people he accused of being criminals – remains online.
Posts in the group use racist slurs to refer to Indigenous people.
One post, about a “race war”, said: “bring it on that would mean we could legally go and get these dogs”.
Guardian Australia has also seen posts by far-right groups that appear designed to fan racial tensions in Queensland and promote vigilante actions.
The MP for Rockhampton, Barry O’Rourke, confirmed he invited O’Brien to attend a meeting “with police and other stakeholders”.
“There is no place for mob action. I completely agree with the police commissioner that this kind of behaviour is extremely dangerous and unhelpful. We’ve seen this kind of behaviour lead to innocent people being harmed or killed in the past and that’s what we desperately want to avoid in Rockhampton,” O’Rourke said.
“The contempt we saw for police on the weekend was especially worrying.
“That is why I have invited Mr O’Brien to attend a meeting with police and other stakeholders – it’s an opportunity for him to air his views the right way, and also an opportunity for police to emphasise the risks to himself and others from these actions. No one wants to see this escalate.”
The Queensland police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, told reporters on Monday that information posted online was not correct and urged Queenslanders not to take the law into their own hands.
Asked on Tuesday why police were meeting with O’Brien, Carroll said it’s “incredibly important to meet with everyone”. She said police were still investigating whether charges should be laid.
“It’s incredibly important that, irrespective of what your background is, to give those people perspective, and to actually tell them what they’re doing is not quite correct,” she said.
The police minister, Mark Ryan, said it was “good representation” for local MPs to meet with members of their community.
Asked whether this included those who espouse anti-Islam beliefs, Ryan said “just because you meet with someone doesn’t mean you agree with them”.
“You can be appalled by someone’s views but nonetheless your role is to listen to people,” he said.
Members of Rockhampton’s Indigenous community are planning to meet this week, to discuss issues of youth crime, “vigilante groups” and children’s safety in the city.
