Opinion: Australian Conservative Lyle Shelton on a mission to stop Safe Schools

HE was a leader of the “No” campaign in the same-sex plebiscite but Australian Conservative Lyle Shelton hasn’t finished with his campaign to put an end to “gender bender” sex education in Queensland state schools.

LYLE Shelton isn’t finished yet with his campaign to rally Christians and conservatives in opposing “gender bender” sex education in Queensland state schools.

“We are looking for a clear statement from the Palaszczuk Government,” says Shelton, who quit as boss of the Australian Christian Lobby to return to Queensland last week, to enter political life.

“The State Government in Queensland still hasn’t disavowed itself of the so-called Safe Schools program.”

Shelton, who has joined Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives, said the gay lobby had been emboldened by the same-sex marriage “Yes” vote and sought to make Safe Schools lessons mandatory.

“This is one of the most astounding things I have ever seen in all my years in values politics,” said Shelton, who was born into a South Burnett dairy farming family 48 years ago.

“This idea that children can be told their gender is fluid is something I think every parent will be concerned about.

“People don’t realise the radical LGBTIQ sexual ideology (and) the transgender ideology that goes under the rainbow flag.”

Shelton said a gay activist let the cat out of the bag on a gay website when he told how he was asked by the Labor Party “to shut up about it” during the state election campaign.

“He’s made it clear he wants this stuff rolled out in schools.

“We lost the marriage debate. One of the consequences will be the rolling out of the Safe Schools program in Queensland schools.”

Shelton, who is married with four children, will inevitably be the Australian Conservatives senate candidate at the next election.

An LNP veteran reckons Shelton will win because Australian Conservatives probably has more members, with LNP membership slipping under 17,000.

Shelton has something else going for him: He is eloquent and committed. No wonder he is regularly vilified by social media trolls.

Shelton moved to Highfields on Toowoomba’s northern outskirts in the early ’70s when his father left farming to establish Toowoomba City Church.

As a journalist, Lyle Shelton edited the university paper, Country Honk, and frequently ran psalms alongside campus news. Later he was elected to Toowoomba City Council.

Shelton was a leader of the “No” campaign in the same-sex plebiscite and still has unfinished business there. He believes there will be a lot of “buyer remorse” with many coming to regret voting “Yes”.

Lyle Shelton and wife Wendy. Picture: AAP/ Ric Frearson

He rejects suggestions he is a homophobe.

“That’s just a slur designed to bully and intimidate people into silence,” he said.

“I should be free to talk about those ideas without being labelled a bigot or a homophobe.”

He said calling someone a bigot, a climate change denier or a homophobe was a tactic to block debate.

“We have to get these slurs out of public discourse and have evidence-based discussions in a calm, civil matter.”

Conservatives, he said, were routinely demonised by the media, “by the elites in the commentariat”.

“There is very little diversity in their thinking. Instead of having a debate they use slurs and labels to shut debate down. We are committing intellectual suicide when we give in to that.

“A free society can only exist when there is a contest of ideas.”

Shelton said the Human Rights Commission and similar state tribunals had become tools to silence and punish people.

He said prime examples were the persecution of the QUT students and the anti-discrimination action against Catholic Archbishop of Hobart, Julian Porteous, simply for opposing same-sex marriage.

Controversially, Shelton said the same-sex marriage debate was not really about marriage. “It’s about de-authorising conservative points of view in society,” he said.

“If you change something as fundamental as the definition of marriage, and then make it hate speech to advocate for the traditional definition, you exercise massive legal and thought control over a large cohort of the population.”

“Instead of having a debate they use slurs and labels to shut debate down.”

He said the Turnbull Government admitted there was a loss of freedom by having an investigation into how to deal with the loss.

“They have given (retired cabinet minister) Phillip Ruddock the task of trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

Shelton added: “Unfortunately the Liberal and National parties are not strong enough in standing up against them.

“That is why we need the leadership offered by the Australian Conservatives.”

Shelton is the eldest of five children whose parents gave them “good conservative values”.

“They taught me personal responsibility and taught me the importance of faith because without faith there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no freedom.

“They taught me about character and personal responsibility. I am very grateful.”

The conservative values were reflected in family budgeting.

“My parents knew what it was to live within their means.”

He still remembers the day the family switched from cheaper International Roast instant coffee to Nescafe. He thought his family had achieved a new level of prosperity.

Australian Conservatives had five “guiding principles” that attracted him. He lists them as stronger families, limited government, personal responsibility, civil society, and free enterprise.

“These are the commonsense values that have been lost in the Canberra bubble.

“We have out-of-control debt in this country – $530 billion of intergenerational debt that has been built up in the last 10 years. That’s extraordinary. That’s just the federal government debt. State and local governments are in a lot of debt as well.

“That should be the big issue our country is talking about.

“It’s a big problem. We just can’t keep kicking the can down the road.”

The Australian Conservatives would support the LNP ahead of other parties because “we do not want to wreck conservative politics, we want to be constructive”.

Australian Conservatives wanted to bring political discourse back to the “sensible centre”.

Shelton said all debate was being manipulated by the Green rainbow left.

“The water of green rainbow left identity politics is in the boat of the conservative side of politics.”

He said conservative politicians were either clueless or afraid to confront it.

There was a third group of LNP powerbrokers who were complicit with it. They included Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and his so-called “winner’s circle”.

Conservatives back Adani

THE Australian Conservatives have backed the Adani coal mine and called for a new clean-coal power station in Queensland.

“We need developments like Adani for the jobs they bring,” said the party’s Queensland chief Lyle Shelton. “More people in India will be lifted out of poverty by having access to Australian clean coal.

“We should make sure we are using these resources here as well and we should be building clean, coal-fired power stations. Coal has been demonised by the Green-Left. It’s paralysing both sides of politics and is a real problem. We’ve got the highest energy prices in the world and we are sitting on some of the most abundant natural resources such as coal.”

Police buried truth

LYLE Shelton accused the Australian Federal Police of a “politically correct” investigation into the 2016 bombing of the Australian Christian Lobby headquarters in Canberra.

Said Shelton: “Our office was bombed by a known gay activist. The police said there was no political, religious or ideological motivation.

“When the court case happened the police transcripts of interviews were released and showed that what the police said was not consistent with the evidence the accused gave them in those interviews.

“It seemed to me political correctness even stopped the police telling the truth about a very, very serious incident. I don’t know of any other politically motivated bombing in Australia.

“We had our office bombed by someone who didn’t like our politics.

“To this day I am still very upset with the Australian Federal Police for not telling the nation the truth.”

A 36-year-old man arrested for the crime died before he could be brought to trial.

P.S …

Hilton barman Jay Tokmak.

Pop secret exposed

JAY Tokmak spoke no English when he settled in Brisbane from the ancient city of Denizli in Turkey five years ago. As a barman at the Hilton hotel in Brisbane’s CBD, Jay also had to learn the recipe for 20 cocktails. No problem there. In fact, he carries 70 recipes in his head, he told me. He has also invented his own drink, Pop Secret, to reflect his love of Queensland. I watched him mix it at a Hilton cocktail contest where be blended Havana rum, grilled pineapples infused with vermouth, coconut puree, salted caramel, a dash of popcorn syrup and lime. I went back to the Hilton for another, but Jay, 25, was on a day off so I went home and attempted to make my own. I’m still recovering.

Code breaker

A NEW code of conduct for nurses has infuriated Graham Haycroft of Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, the breakaway union. He has dismissed the code as “politically correct tosh” and has launched a petition (npaq.com.au) to “make sure that no nurse can lose their career because a patient doesn’t like their bedside manner”. Said Haycroft: “The code says ‘cultural safety’ is just as important as ‘clinical safety’ and nurses could be reprimanded or stood down if they got a bad report from a patient.” He said nurses already know that patients should be treated with respect. The new code for Australia’s 280,000 nurses was released by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Haycroft said it was supported by the Queensland Nurses’ Union to promote its party-political social policy. His breakaway union signed up 45 new members last week for a total of 2245. The NPAQ is not politically aligned and is prospering because its membership fees are low.

Blind eye?

THERE is much we don’t know about the Logan council controversy. That said, I think any council has the right to get rid of a bureaucrat that its elected representatives can’t work with. Chief exec Sharon Kelsey was still on probation when she was terminated. Perhaps I’m being pedantic, but I don’t think it is possible to “sack” someone who is not a fully-fledged member of staff. Kelsey made a failed bid in the Industrial Relations Commission to extend her probation. I believe no bureaucrat should be allowed to lord it over our democratically elected representatives, including parliamentarians. That would be the path to despotism and anarchy. Behind the scenes, the Crime and Corruption Commission has entered the imbroglio and last week stormed into a budget meeting with search warrants. Phones and computers have been seized. And there have been letters from the CCC directing councillors take a certain course of action over staffing. I hope I’m wrong, but it smells like the crime watchdog is in danger of usurping the council’s authority. That said, the watchdog has a duty to pursue possible criminality. However, while probing several councils’ links with developers, it turned a blind eye to suspicious contact between Cabinet ministers and corrupt unions. I’d hate to see the Crime and Corruption Commission accused of playing politics. Our Cabinet ministers are now meeting union chiefs outside their offices so they don’t have to record them in their official diaries.

Greens MP Adam Bandt.

Irritant of the week

GREENS MP Adam Bandt for accusing Jim Molan of war crimes. Senator Molan, a retired major-general with a military career spanning four decades, was the chief of operations of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq for a year. Molan and others who fought there should be regarded as national heroes.

He said what?

“THE parties of the left have become even more authoritarian; particularly in their hostility to intellectual freedom and freedom of speech”. And, “increasingly, powerful elements of right-wing politics have abandoned both liberalism’s concern for the rights of the individual … in favour of a belligerent, intolerant populism.” George Brandis bows out after 18 years in the Senate.