Queensland

Furious Pisasale threatens festival funding over ex-One Nation candidate's comments

Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale has threatened to cut council funding of next month's Harmony Day Festival unless its president, disendorsed One Nation candidate Shan Ju Lin, stepped down from its organising committee.

Those comments, in which Ms Lin suggested gay people engaged in "abnormal sex behaviour" and should be "treated as patients", saw her disendorsed as One Nation's candidate for the state seat of Bundamba on Saturday.

That came after a personal intervention from Senator Pauline Hanson on Friday night.

On Sunday, Senator Hanson said Ms Lin's views were not shared by her party.

"I will not stand by and allow people to trash the party or my name, so I make no apologies for being tough on candidates," she said.

It was just one of many posts the self-proclaimed champion of harmony made on her Facebook page, many of them anti-Muslim, anti-gay and anti-Chinese.

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Among several links to questionable news sources was a story suggesting the Obama administration was a key funder of ISIS.

Comment has been sought from Ms Lin, who stood firm in her views via a message posted to social media late Saturday night.

"Thanks for all supporters, no matter what happened, I will continue to hold the values that we are holding," she posted to Facebook.

Cr Pisasale said he was disgusted to read the comments and would seek assurances from the festival's organising committee, of which Ms Lin was president, that she would no longer have a major role.

The mayor said his council would "100 per cent" reconsider its sponsorship if Ms Lin remained prominently involved.

"I can tell you I'm not pleased that someone who pretends to create world harmony – and the event itself is fantastic – would act in this way," Cr Pisasale said.

"Myself, as the mayor, will lead a full discussion with the committee to make sure the committee's views are not the same as this rogue candidate."

Failure of the Harmony Day Festival to distance itself from Ms Lin, Cr Pisasale said, would result in the council withdrawing its sponsorship.

"(Ms Lin) needs to do two things," he said.

"She needs to distance herself from the event and apologise. In this day and age, I am not going to tolerate this.

"Ipswich is a welcoming community and this organisation, which is Brisbane-based, we support because of what it stands for – World Harmony Day.

"All different nationalities come together, so it wouldn't be good that because of one person we destroy the event.

"We'll sit down with the organisers to find out the role that she's playing and how she's going to fix the damage she caused."

The 2017 Ipswich Harmony Day festival was due to be held at Robelle Domain Park at Springfield Central on March 12.

Cr Pisasale said he was pleased Senator Hanson had "nipped it in the bud" and dumped Ms Lin as a candidate.

"It's so ridiculous to say homosexuals should be treated as patients – are you kidding me?," he said.

"It's crazy. Where do people dream this shit up from?"

Ms Lin stood in the Brisbane seat of Moreton for Katter's Australian Party at last year's federal election.

The Taiwanese-born candidate courted controversy last month when she suggested "good Asians" would support One Nation at the next Queensland election.

Ms Lin was the second One Nation state candidate to be disendorsed within weeks of their candidacies being announced.

The party's Currumbin candidate, Andy Semple, withdrew his candidacy last month, also due to social media posts the One Nation executive found unpalatable.

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