Two Gold Coast Young Liberals in hot water after posting racist slur video online
Two Gold Coast Young Liberals are in hot water after a racist remark about indigenous people was filmed and posted on Facebook.
National
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Two Gold Coast Young Liberals are under fire after publishing a video that includes a racist slur against indigenous people.
In the full video, which has since been removed from the group’s Facebook page, the party’s chairman Barclay McGain walks around Surfers Paradise asking Schoolies for their thoughts on Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
At one point, Mr McGain is seen laughing as an interviewee says: “We’ve got to stop celebrating a culture that couldn’t even invent the bloody wheel, for God’s sake”, in relation to indigenous people.
The footage is presented as a series of random vox pops, and the young man who makes the offending statement says he’s “a bit of a leftie myself”.
But the interviewee is actually Jake Scott, a Liberal Party volunteer who has actively campaigned with the group, and been photographed with LNP Petrie MP Luke Howarth.
The video has been posted to various Facebook pages and on Twitter, with social media users slamming the footage.
The Gold Coast Young LNP need to delete themselves next https://t.co/iMeBedDrbp
— Jess McGuire (@jessmcguire) December 2, 2019
Um is this a @BetootaAdvocate parody or? Young LNP chair "Barclay McGain" in a Hawaiian shirt at schoolies https://t.co/SZGnd8Fao9
— Nadia Daly (@nadiasdaly) December 2, 2019
Those young liberals from the Gold Coast proudly broadcasting their racism is what is wrong with Australia today. Who put those ideas into their immature heads?
— 💧Dead Parrot Society (@MyFirstCousin) December 2, 2019
News.com.au has reached out to Mr McGain for comment. In a reply message, Mr McGain said, “Sorry mate, nothing to say about it.”
But the LNP issued a statement this morning which said all those involved in the video would face “internal disciplinary” action.
“The post was removed and the members involved will be subject to the LNP’s internal disciplinary process,” the statement said.
“All LNP members are expected to uphold the values of the party at all times.
“The Liberal National Party, as well as its predecessor parties, have proudly embraced the history and culture of Indigenous Australians, and advanced more than any other party Indigenous representation in the Australian Parliament.”
State Labor Environment Minister Leanne Enoch said the video was “disturbing on many levels”.
“The Opposition leader needs to call out these statements for what they are and that’s racist,” she said in a statement.
“These kinds of views should not be allowed to simmer within any organisation.
“Swift action needs to be taken.
“I’ve called out this kind of behaviour from the LNP before and I’ll keep calling it out until it stops.”
This isn’t the first time the Young Liberals have come under fire, with a history of discriminatory remarks from members of the group.
In February, four NSW Young Liberals were booted from the party for making sexually explicit and derogatory remarks about women in an online chat group for election campaigning.
In August 2014, several Young Liberal students at Melbourne University were reported for posting misogynistic comments on their Facebook page, including one referring to prominent feminist Germaine Greer as a “lying f***ing c*m-guzzling sl*t”.
In 2006, ABC Lateline aired infamous footage of party members chanting “We’re racist, we’re sexist, we’re homophobic” during the National Union of Students’ conference in Ballarat.
Originally published as Two Gold Coast Young Liberals in hot water after posting racist slur video online