Fraser Coast councillor James Hansen suspended for a month

A defiant dairy-farmer councillor, who claimed Covid jabs were part of a planned population “cull” and wrote polarising posts about race and gender, has been suspended by the State Government.

Fraser Coast councillor James Hansen has been suspended for a month for series of controversial Facebook posts.

A Queensland councillor who made a series of controversial comments on social media about conspiracy theories, race and gender, has been suspended.

Deputy Premier and Local Government Mininster Steven Miles confirmed on Thursday he had made the decision to stand down Fraser Coast councillor and dairy farmer James Hansen for one month.

The decision follows last month’s recommendation from the Councillor Conduct Tribunal which found Mr Hansen’s posts amounted to misconduct.

“As recommended by the Councillor Conduct Tribunal, I have suspended the councillor for one month, commencing on September 8, 2023,” Mr Miles said

The loss of an elected representative from the council comes less than 24 hours after a special meeting where the council elected a new councillor for Division 7 following the shock resignation of Darren Everard.

On Wednesday, Jan Hegge was elected to fill the role until the March local government elections.

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

In a series of Facebook posts from July 2020 Mr Hansen wrote on his personal social media account about the pandemic, including labelling the official response a “wank” and referring 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”.

Elected councillor for Division 1 James Hansen

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 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”.

On January 25, 2021, Mr Hansen shared an image of what appeared to be protesters 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 read

At the time, Mr Hansen said he disagreed with the decision and would 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.”

On Thursday evening, Mr Hansen was holding firm.

“I stand by my comments, all of which were on my personal page, I said men shouldn’t complete in women’s sports as I believe in women’s rights,” he said

“That the COVID mandates were too overreacting … and that the changing of Coon cheese was unwarranted as it was named after its inventor, Mr coon from the USA, crazy political correctness.”