One of the Voice to Parliament No campaigns has added a new face: a vehemently anti-abortion former United Australia Party (UAP) candidate who was caught lying about her status as an adjunct lecturer.
The high-profile defection of Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to right-wing lobby group Advance’s “Fair Australia” campaign left the Voice No Case Committee’s “Recognise a Better Way” campaign looking very male.
Its six-member board — featuring luminaries such as former National Labor Party president Nyunggai Warren Mundine and former deputy prime minister John Anderson — was comprised entirely of men.
Recently, however, the committee added a new member, Yodie Batzke. The campaign’s website describes Batzke as “of Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal heritage (identifying with the Wuthathi people of Cape York and with Boigu Island located in Torres Straits) and is a former ATSIC Regional Council chairperson”.
What isn’t mentioned is Batzke’s extensive political history. She’s run repeatedly for Parliament, including in both the 2019 federal and 2020 Queensland state elections.
Her tilt as the Clive Palmer-led UAP’s third Senate candidate drew notoriety for a series of blunders. Batzke’s profile on the UAP website listed her as an adjunct lecturer with the Centre for Tropical Urban & Regional Planning College of Science and Technology at James Cook University’s Cairns campus. Except, as Guardian Australia reported at the time, the university had no record of her holding such a role.
“Yodie Batzke has delivered guest lectures at JCU but is not an adjunct lecturer at JCU,” a James Cook University spokesman said.
Batzke was also called out for another fib during the election when she claimed that both the Liberal and Labor parties wouldn’t give tax cuts until 2024. But both major parties promised tax cuts which were eventually legislated by the Coalition in 2019 and kicked in the following year.
The Queensland pastor also posted, then deleted, Facebook posts with a pregnant woman with a noose around her belly and comparing anti-abortionists to gun control activists, as reported by Guardian Australia.
Neither the campaign nor Batzke responded to a request for comment.
