Pauline Hanson One Nation candidate withdraws candidacy after less than a week

UPDATE: The former One Nation candidate who quit less than 48 hours after his candidacy was officially announced is considering running as an independent at the state election.

Andy Semple was to stand for the Gold Coast seat of Currumbin for One Nation. PIC: Annette Dew

• Hanson’s One Nation tearing itself apart
• One Nation: Full list of Queensland candidates revealed

THE former One Nation candidate who quit less than 48 hours after his candidacy was officially announced is considering running as an independent at the state election.

Gold Coast man Andy Semple, who was to run as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation’s candidate for Currumbin, officially resigned from the party this morning after tweeting his intentions last night.

It came after PHON state secretary Jim Savage asked Mr Semple to remove an offensive tweet he had uploaded to his account in September.

Mr Semple told The Courier-Mail he had no hard feelings over the decision, but cautioned his former party not to become too focussed on protecting the “brand” over free speech.

“I said to my wife: ‘If they are going to ask me to remove one tweet today because they don’t like it, most likely they will find another one and another one and then this whole thing becomes untenable’,” he said.

“I just thought the best thing to do right now for everybody concerned, and that includes the party, was just to withdraw my candidacy.

“They are too controlled in managing an image at the moment. I believe in Senator Hanson and Senator (Malcolm) Roberts and what the party is doing, I just have this sad feeling that what they may be overly so protective and brand conscious they are to the point of maybe paranoia on certain things.”

He said he had disclosed his Twitter account to the party on seeking preselection.

Mr Semple said he still wanted to be involved in politics, however, and was considering contesting the next state election in the seat of Currumbin as an independent.

“I’m thinking about whether I should run as an independent. I’ve got a lot of support from a lot of other people,” he said.

“I haven’t made that call yet ... but I’m considering it.”

EARLIER: Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has dismissed the threat of Pauline Hanson and One Nation at the next Queensland election.

Ms Hanson announced 36 One Nation candidates at the weekend, preselected as part of a bid to topple the first-term Palaszczuk Government.

Mr Joyce said One Nation’s success at this year’s federal poll had similarities to Clive Palmer’s short-lived political rise.

“I must say I’ve seen this movie before,” he said.

“Last time it was called Clive Palmer, and this time it’s called One Nation.”

His comments come only hours after it was revealed that one of the candidates announced on the weekend had withdrawn.

Andy Semple, who was meant to run in the seat of Currumbin, currently held by the LNP, announced on Twitter last night he had withdrawn his candidacy.

Sadly, I have withdrawn my #PHON candidacy for Currumbin
It seems #PHON only likes certain types of Freedom of Expression

— Andy Semple (@BULMKT) December 19, 2016

“It seems #PHON only likes certain types of freedom of expression,” he tweeted.

Ms Hanson officially announced his candidacy, along with 35 others, on Sunday.

Mr Semple, a financial advisor, has been outspoken in Twitter criticising Muslims, women with hairy armpits and vegetarians.

He defended his comments in an interview with the Gold Coast Bulletin, however, insisting he would not be suffocated by political correctness.

“I say on my Twitter feed that political correctness stops here. I’m sick of the BS. I’m not going out of my way to say this person is a mongrel. I’m just tweeting my opinions — people either like what I say or don’t like it,” he told the paper in an interview published today.

“As for what I have tweeted over many years — that’s my opinion and sure some poor snowflake out there won’t like what I have to say,” he said.

“But by God as a free Australian I have a right to express my opinions and its quite pathetic that the ALP and LNP think they can score some win because of something I have tweeted in the past.”

PHON state and national secretary - and candidate for Lockyer - Jim Savage said Mr Semple withdrew as a candidate last night after he was contacted and asked him to remove an “inappropriate” tweet.

“I became aware last night that he had tweeted something that we considered inappropriate for the standards One Nation likes to set,” Mr Savage said.

“I asked him to remove it immediately.”

One Nation state secretary Jim Savage: “I’ll take a kick in the backside for that”.

Mr Savage said Mr Semple was unhappy with the request.

“As a result he is no longer a candidate,” he said.

Mr Savage said the tweet involved an “inappropriate comment about an LGBTI joke.”

He said he took full responsibility as he was responsible for preselecting Mr Semple.

“I was the man who interviewed this gentleman and it got past me. I wish him all the best.

“This one got past me. I’ll take a kick in the backside for that.”

A new candidate is not expected to be selected to replace Mr Semple until after Christmas.

Mr Semple wrote a submission to the Federal Parliament’s joint committee on human rights earlier this month calling for a free speech amendment to be written into the Constitution.

He also expressed his opposition to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and called for the Australian Human Rights Commission to be abolished.

“Thanks to ss.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) Australians do not have the right to freedom of opinion and expression as expressed by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Mr Semple wrote in the submission.

“18C is being used as a weapon to limit free speech and as a tool to extract money in a “legal shake-down” of people who preferred to pay confidential settlements rather than risk a public fight to prove they were not racist.

“The current terms of offend, insult and humiliate as grounds of discrimination is not only wrong, but dangerous for our Liberal Democracy.

“If you want to know who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.

“Is that the Australia we all want to live in? If freedom of opinion means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

“Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President, was right when he said that “The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.”

“It is my opinion that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights should instead be legislating our very own “Free Speech Amendment” into the Australian Constitution: Parliament shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the news media; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

“Once such legislation is enacted, the Parliament’s next task should then be to fully disband the Australian Human Rights Commission.

“So give me the right to free speech and I’ll use it to secure and protect all of my other human rights.”