One Nation has refused to comment on the future of a candidate at the Queensland state election who likened the Covid vaccine to the Holocaust amid calls for him to be stood down.
Health experts and a Jewish community leader condemned the comments by Gary Williamson, a bricklayer who is running for the seat of Redlands, when revealed by Guardian Australia on Wednesday.
After the Guardian’s report, the deputy premier, Cameron Dick, called for Williamson to be “disendorsed immediately”.
Williamson made the comparison on social media in June.
“Hitler, forced people into gas chambers. Covid-19, had people lining up, which is worse..!?!” he wrote on Facebook.
Williamson later deleted the post, but stood by the claims when contacted by the Guardian this week.
Until Tuesday, his Instagram account – which featured a profile image carrying the One Nation banner and a bio with a link to his bricklaying company – remained open to the public and contained a long history of anti-vaccination posts, including a video which showed a bong, a heat gun and a packet of cigarettes and in which he joked about having “killed covid”.
After speaking to the Guardian on Tuesday, Williamson sent a text message saying that he “looked forward to the publicity” and that “the people need to see my face”.
On Wednesday, his social media account was changed to private. Williamson did not answer calls from the Guardian.
Nor did the One Nation state election leader, James Ashby. Ashby was contacted on Tuesday morning for comment and requested questions be sent via email. Several emails were sent by the Guardian on Tuesday and Wednesday, but no response was received. Ashby did not answer calls on Wednesday.
Answering a question from Guardian Australia after the leaders debate on Wednesday afternoon, the Queensland treasurer described Williamson’s comments as “disgraceful and disgusting”.
“He should be disendorsed immediately if One Nation has any sense or any skerrick of moral fibre in that organisation,” Dick said of Williamson. “But you know what? I doubt it.”
One Nation fielded a candidate in all 93 electorates across Queensland in this month’s election and Williamson is not the first to have his past rear its head.
The party’s Chatsworth candidate, Jasmine Harte, was disendorsed last week after photos emerged of her as a nude model and a 13-year-old accusation of attempted murder – a charge that was later dropped – resurfaced.
Political analysts said One Nation’s long history of running “colourful” candidates would likely end up dooming what was once a powerful force in Queensland politics to irrelevance.
One Nation’s popularity in the sunshine state hit its high-water mark in the first Queensland election it contested in 1998, at which the anti-immigration party won almost 23% of the vote and a total of 11 seats in Queensland’s unicameral parliament.
Paul Williams, an associate professor of politics at Griffith University, said that all minor parties faced greater challenges in vetting candidates – but that One Nation had a particularly long history of having damaging material emerge about candidates, being forced to stand down representatives or having them quit the party.
“You might say that One Nation has disproportionately been embarrassed by candidates in the past,” he said. “This has been a problem for One Nation for 26 years.”
He said such “colourful” candidates were likely to “doom” the party to irrelevance once its leader, Pauline Hanson, retired from politics.
“[One Nation] started off as potentially mainstream,” Williams said. “But that vote has diminished.
“Their actions and rhetoric have condemned the party to be a fringe party.”
Pandanus Petter, a research fellow at the school of politics and international relations at the Australian National University, said the party’s fortunes contrasted with the ascendant far right of Europe.
“Unlike some of those European, rightwing, radical, populist parties, One Nation are not super big on trying to be what’s called ‘respectable radicals’,” he said. “A lot of those parties have spent many years trying to bring themselves into the mainstream, whereas a lot of One Nation is still happy to stand outside the main party system and have more extreme views.”
Despite polls predicting big swings against the governing Labor party, both Williams and Petter said it was more likely than not One Nation would fail to win a seat at the coming election.
