On Sunday, United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet posted to his Telegram channel about children’s sex education book Welcome to Sex that has become a target of conservative media and online conspiracy communities.
“Yumi Stynes and the other author Melissa Kang have a lot to answer for,” he wrote.
The responses came quickly. “Which entho-religious minority is mostly responsible for forcing such ideas in Western countries? And why do they always wear those funny little hats,” asked a commenter who is also a member of a neo-Nazi channel. Another one responded “Take them to the gallows” and gave a thumbs-up emoji.
These comments are the norm, not the exception, for Babet’s Telegram channel, which is overrun with threats of violence, hate symbols, slurs and recruiting efforts by known neo-Nazis. Crikey does not suggest that he endorses these views. There is evidence to suggest, however, that Babet has been made aware of the proliferation of extremist content in his online community in the past.
Babet did not respond to a request for comment.
Babet has promoted his Telegram channel in the past. Its content typically consists of reposts of content from his other social media accounts. With fewer than 700 followers on the alt-tech platform, it’s a much smaller affair than his other accounts but its used almost as much.
What makes it different from his presence elsewhere is the community that has formed in his channel. Even by Telegram’s laissez-faire standards, it is filled with hateful content. Some comes in response to his posts, including calls for violence against people who Babet has made critical posts about, such as Welcome to Sex’s authors and LGBTQIA+ activists. Other content urges Babet to go further by making explicitly bigoted remarks against minorities and criticising or abusing him for failing to do so.
Nazi references and iconography appear in many of the active users’ names, profile pictures and posts. Last week one user with a swastika in their name directed people to join the Telegram channel of Australia’s most active neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Network. On Monday another user posted a 2018 photograph of the Ku Klux Klan burning a swastika in Georgia.
While Crikey has not seen evidence of the senator’s account engaging with or encouraging these comments, Babet has solicited his Telegram followers to engage in the comments section. Before the City of Monash’s drag storytime event in May that was cancelled after organisers were threatened, Babet called on people to “Screenshot and share in the comments all the far-left extremist events/invites.”
When anonymous anti-fascist researchers Alternative Media Watchers tweeted at Babet with information about the neo-Nazi infiltration of his comments section on May 2, his Telegram was wiped later that day without an explanation.
Babet entered the Senate last year as the sole United Australia Party member to be elected courtesy of Clive Palmer’s $100 million federal election spend. A keen user of Telegram even before his election, Babet wiped his personal social media shortly after winning his race, but not before Crikey reported on his history of conspiracy theories and anti-lockdown posts.
