Two One Nation candidates are under fire for promoting anti-gay messages and Port Arthur conspiracy theories, as Pauline Hanson declares the party can win government in Queensland.
Mulgrave candidate Peter Rogers is the latest to face criticism after writing on his campaign website that drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi was “alive and well” and that the Port Arthur massacre was “a fabricated incident”.
Rogers wrote that Alan’s father’s story was “full of holes”.
“His story is made up. He was never on that boat to watch his wife and children drown.”
He said the greatest social changes that happened in Australia were “founded on total lies and a fabricated incident”.
“Look at Port Arthur.”
The post was removed on Friday morning.
Glasshouse candidate Tracey Bell-Henselin has been rebuked again over her attitudes towards the LGBTI community after the emergence of more Facebook posts, including that children’s T-shirts with slogans such as “love, equality, pride” represented “sexual grooming [of] children” by LGBTI people “to serve there [sic] own sexual queer agendas”.
In posts Bell-Henselin shared with friends weeks before she was preselected last month, she also alluded to the “need” for Hillary and Bill Clinton to be shot over fake news allegations of their link to a paedophile ring.
Federal political figures in Queensland said the comments by Rogers and Bell-Henselin were outrageous.
Two previous One Nation candidates have departed shortly after their pre-selections when the party cracked down on their online commentary.
On Thursday former federal One Nation senator Rod Culleton was resisting his expulsion from parliament in what Hanson said was a “debacle”. Culleton’s undisclosed chequered past, including arrests in three states, prompted One Nation to broaden its police checks on state candidates.
The Greens deputy federal leader, Larissa Waters, said Rogers’ “outrageous conspiracy theories” were “shocking but not surprising”, accusing One Nation of harbouring “conspiracy-peddling knuckle-draggers”.
“The suggestion by One Nation’s Mulgrave candidate that Port Arthur was staged is an insult to all Australians who are still horrified by the worst gun massacre in our history,” Waters said.
Tasmanian Greens senator Nick McKim said Hanson must sack Rogers over the post.
“She should not only sack Mr Rogers as a candidate, but she needs to apologise particularly to the Tasmanian people, for comments that are just breathtaking in their insensitivity around something that was such a terrible and tragic event for Tasmania,” McKim said.
Hanson was due to travel to Bell-Henselin’s home turf on the Sunshine Coast on Friday to “wheel out plans to bolster my troops, ready for the state election” and promising a “game-changing announcement”.
“Get set Queensland. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is in this next state election to win government,” she said in a statement. A Galaxy poll late last year had the One Nation primary vote in Queensland on 16%.
On Thursday Hanson backed Bell-Henselin over her previously reported Facebook comments that the LGBTI community was “out to destroy families as we know [them]”.
Hanson said those comments, when taken “in context”, were not homophobic but supporting “traditional families”. It was not clear whether she or the rest of the party executive had seen the other posts obtained by Guardian Australia.
In one, Bell-Henselin, who is understood to enjoy strong support from some influential members of the religious right in Queensland, refers to “sodomy” as “what LGBTI want for all Australians … is this what you want for the children you gave birth to – ‘your family’ do not be deceived”.
She comments on another post about Target selling “gay pride” T-shirts for children: “How dare a family store push this rubbish onto our children – never ever will you see me in a target stall. selfish adults sexual grooming children to serve there own sexual queer agendas.”
Bridget Clinch, a pioneering transgender military officer and Veterans party candidate at the last federal election, said the posts showed “nothing new – another poorly educated and non-critical thinking candidate from a party with a regressive agenda”.
“I’ve just finished lunch with my toddler and was building a fort in the loungeroom wondering what to make for dinner and how to get more veggies in to him,” Clinch said.
“I think that’s more representative of what LGBTI people want, to just live and be part of civilised society, not indoctrinate people, or jump to bestiality, despite how many rightwing politicians seem to be obsessed with both gay sex and bestiality.
“[Bell-Henselin] talks about us wanting to destroy families when really we just want our legal recognition there as a family.”
One LNP figure said Bell-Henselin’s posts displayed “outrageous claims and reveal her deep bigotry against the LGBTI community”.
Neither Rogers nor Bell-Henselin could be reached for comment.
One Nation state secretary Jim Savage said he had not seen the unreported posts by Bell-Henselin, and was unsure whether Hanson and the rest of the executive had seen them.
But he strongly defended Bell-Henselin’s character and calibre as a candidate, citing her history working in child protection and with an organisation that rescued children from sex trafficking.
“She’s done a tremendous amount of work for disadvantaged children and child sexual abuse victims, women abuse victims,” Savage said.
“She would be one of the most decent, hardworking, community-minded people that I know and for anybody to try and dig up dirt on her and calling her a bigot or anything like that, is just missing the point entirely.
“If that’s the track people are going to go down, they’re going to be sorely disappointed because she’s a bloody saint and I’m surprised people aren’t concentrating on all the good work she’s done.
“Obviously somebody who has a history of caring for children is in a position to see the effects of lifestyle and the environment have on children ... I believe she said she believes in traditional marriage and a kid needs a mother and a father.
“I do know the executive looked at it [the post containing the reported comments] and they were quite happy with it. Whether they have or not [looked at the other material] I don’t know.”
Savage did not respond later on Thursday to questions about whether One Nation maintained its endorsement of Bell-Henselin in light of the unreported posts, which Guardian Australia provided to him.
Former Bundamba candidate Shan Ju Lin was disendorsed last Saturday after posting on Facebook that gay people “should be treated as patients”.
Former Currumbin candidate Andy Semple quit on 20 December after the executive censured him over an attempted joke on Twitter referring to a T-shirt representing the letters “LGBT” with images of the statue of liberty, a gun, beer and “tits”.
Semple said One Nation’s continued support for Bell-Henselin, when her remarks were taken beside his, was another example of its “double standards” after its early support for Lin over her other contentious online comments.
