New Liberal senator Jim Molan denies racism claims over Britain First videos
THE Prime Minister has defended new Liberal senator Jim Molan over anti-Islam videos posted to his Facebook in a blistering Question Time attack on Bill Shorten.
National
Don't miss out on the headlines from National. Followed categories will be added to My News.
MALCOLM Turnbull has defended new Liberal senator Jim Molan over anti-Islam videos posted to his Facebook in a blistering Question Time attack on Bill Shorten.
The Prime Minister dubbed the Opposition leader “deplorable” for implying Senator Molan was a racist.
“He has stood up for Australian values, put his life on the line, led our troops and our allies’ troops in conflict,” Mr Turnbull said.
“He has led thousands of troops in the battle for freedom against terrorism.
“The Leader of the Opposition wants to describe him as a racist.
“That is deplorable. It is disgusting.
“Jim Molan is a great Australian soldier.
“We are lucky to have him in the Senate.”
Mr Turnbull went on to say Senator Molan “doesn’t have a racist bone in his body”.
The Labor leader had called on the Prime Minister in Question Time to direct Senator Molan to take down the “racist and bigoted material” he had posted to Facebook last March.
REVEALED: ‘People being led on about Adani” — Shorten
The Greens have used parliamentary privilege to question whether Senator Molan could be a war criminal, suggesting his views about Muslims played a role in a decision of Coalition forces to use “hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against a civilian population” during the 2004 assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
In Senate Question Time on Tuesday Greens Leader Richard Di Natale took the extreme step of demanding Defence Minister Marise Payne answer whether the Government was concerned that these Senator Molan’s “extreme views” may have “influenced the decisions he made while executing the military campaign in Fallujah.”
He said that a UN special rapporteur had found Coalition forces used “hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against a civilian population—a flagrant violation of international law.”
The extraordinary attack prompted a spirited response from Senator Payne who said the her 20 years in she had “heard some extraordinarily unedifying things—many of them from the Australian Greens but that reflection on the service of a senior Australian Army officer takes your lows to depths that I did not think you could plumb.”
Earlier, Senator Molan dubbed far-right UK group Britain First “appalling” but defended sharing anti-Islam videos posted by the group on Facebook.
The new senator insisted he was not a racist while defending the videos on his first day in Parliament yesterday.
The retired major-general shared the videos, which purport to show Muslim violence in Europe, on Facebook in March last year.
In a fiery interview on ABC radio this morning, he stood by posting the videos, saying he was against violence and anti-social behaviour.
He dubbed anyone who called him a racist “stark raving mad”.
“What I was trying to say to people was that the breakdown of society through violence and anti-social behaviour is something that we should all be very, very aware of,” Senator Molan said.
“I have served in countries where society has broken down, where violence is widespread and I was trying to achieve nothing more than that.”
Senator Molan shared the clips long before US President Donald Trump, who brought the group to the world’s attention last month after he retweeted one of their videos.
President Trump apologised, claiming he didn’t know who the group was.
This morning, Senator Molan confirmed he had not checked the group’s motives before posting the videos.
He rejected reports the videos had been discredited.
“I don’t endorse Britain First. Britain First is an appalling organisation,” he said.
“I now know that it’s an appalling organisation. Do I endorse the video? The videos stand by themselves.”
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten this morning called on the senator to clearly repudiate the views which he shared.
“I think it was probably unwise to share these videos. They are repugnant,” Mr Shorten said. “I think it’s up to Senator Molan to repudiate the views which he shared and I think to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Senator Molan, who was sworn in to replace ousted Nationals senator Fiona Nash, rose in Parliament to defend the videos yesterday.
The outcry over the posts comes before the senator has even made his first speech.
“I am not a racist and I am not anti-Islam,” he told Parliament.
“Supposedly I’m asked to apologise for being anti-violent. Bizarre.”
Senator Molan said he could not have served in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Iraq, where he was chief of operations for coalition forces for a year, if he was a racist.
“I fought for Muslims in Iraq and many Iraqis were alive when I left because of the actions I took,” he said.
“I’ve had many Muslim friends through periods of intense conflict.”
While the authenticity of the videos has been disputed, Senator Molan invited his upper house colleagues to draw their own conclusions.
“To me they look to this day very, very real,” he said.
Greens senator Nick McKim tweeted Senator Molan was “a blatant racist who brags about the cruelty of offshore detention, and revels in trampling rights and freedoms”.
Senator Molan, the co-author of the coalition’s Operation Sovereign Borders immigration policy, called on Senator McKim to withdraw the claims, saying they were totally untrue.