The Facebook posts that could see councillor James Hansen suspended

The Facebook posts behind a tribunal’s decision to recommend suspending Fraser Coast councillor James Hansen can now be revealed.

James Hansen at the Teebar Rodeo. Photo: Brendan Bufi / Fraser Coast Chronicle

The Facebook posts behind a tribunal’s decision to recommend suspending Fraser Coast councillor James Hansen can now be revealed.

The recommendation was made by the Councillor Conduct Tribunal after the examination of a series of social media posts made by Mr Hansen.

It will now be up to Deputy Premier and Local Government Minister Steven Miles to decide if Mr Hansen is suspended, the length of the suspension and whether he will be paid for that period.

The details of the misconduct complaint were published in the tribunal’s decision, which included Facebook posts made by Mr Hansen regarding transgender athletes, Coon cheese and Covid-19.

The complaint included a series of Facebook posts from July 2020 in which Mr Hansen posted to his personal social media account, made comments about the pandemic, including labelling the response a “wank” and referred to it as a “plandemic”.

In February, Mr Hansen posted a graphic about vaccination and wrote “I and my family certainly won’t be getting it, not a conspiracy mate, it’s a plan by Bill Gates and the new world order to cull people”.

According to the tribunal’s findings, Mr Hansen’s comments around the pandemic were “inconsistent with local government principles being ‘democratic representation, social inclusion and meaningful community engagement’ and his responsibility to provide ‘high quality leadership to the local government and community’, in that his commentary publicly undermines the seriousness and legitimacy of the COVID-19 pandemic and fails to support and encourage community members to follow public health directives put in place by the Chief Health Officer, in relation to a public health crisis”.

Then in January 2021, the tribunal found Mr Hansen had shared “racially insensitive” posts and comments on his Facebook page.

That was in relation to the rebranding of Coon cheese as Cheer cheese and the celebration of Australia Day.

Among the posts was a link to an article by AdvanceAustralia.org.au titled, “Zali Steggall calls for a minute of silence to mourn … on Australia Day”.

In sharing the article, Mr Hansen commented, “Stupid woman, Australia was settled”.

Councillor James Hansen.

On January 25, 2021, Mr Hansen shared an image of what appeared to be protestors holding a sign that stated, “You are on stolen land! Always was always will be Aboriginal land”. The bottom half of the image shows a movie character and the text, “So what, you’re on Centrelink!”

In January and February, 2021, Mr Hansen shared posts relating to the participation of transgender people in sports and “in doing so added comments on his personal Facebook page that are discriminatory towards transgender people”, the tribunal found.

On January 30, Mr Hansen shared a post containing an image of a transgender athlete and text which commented on the athlete’s achievements in male hurdles compared to female hurdles.

Mr Hansen made the following comments in relation to this article: “Yeah the world has gone mad, fancy letting a bloke compete against women” and “It’s a bloody man a poor excuse for one, the bastard would last five minutes working on a farm”.

The tribunal found that Mr Hansen was “visually identifiable and easily recognisable as a Councillor of Council, which runs the risk of his posts, comments and likes being interpreted as statements of Council, particularly where the Respondent took no steps in the posts to indicate that any of them were his personal opinion”.

His comments against Covid-19 regulations could “easily have been viewed as his dissent against the Council’s attempts to enforce public health measures, and would therefore qualify as statements which “may diminish [Council’s] standing, authority or dignity” under section 3.3 of the Code of Conduct”, the findings of the tribunal read.

Mr Hansen says he disagrees with the decision and will be appealing it through the Queensland Civil Administrative Tribunal.

“I expressed opinions on three issues as a private citizen on my private (Facebook) page,” he said.

“I expressed an opinion that biological men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports, I expressed an opinion that Coon cheese (now Cheer) shouldn’t have its name changed as it was named after the inventor Mr Coon an American (and) I expressed an opinion that I disagreed with Covid mandates.

“All were made in my personal capacity not as a councillor … as I’ve said before if we aren’t free to express personal points of view we are in a bad situation.”

Mr Hansen, a former One Nation candidate, has long courted controversy on his Facebook page.

He first faced calls from a state minister to stand down when, during criticism over a decision about the Tobruk dive site, he said then Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch was “supposed to be black” but was as “white” as he was.

At the time, Ms Enoch, who became the first indigenous woman to be elected to Queensland Parliament, said the comment was “nothing less than racist”.

She said Mr Hansen’s decision to relate the Tobruk decision “to my appearance and my race is absolutely appalling” and his comments had “no place in a modern, diverse Queensland”.

In March this year, a photo on his page of a dark sheep was posted with the caption “got me a new blackie, her name is n-----”.

Mr Hansen believed there was no issue with the post as “that’s her name” but a response from a Fraser Coast Regional Council spokesman at the time condemned the use of racist language.

A spokeswoman for Mr Miles responded to the Chronicle’s request for comment.

“The Deputy Premier will consider advice from the Department of State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning in relation to the Tribunal’s recommendation,” she said.