Burnside hopeful calls for ‘revolution’ in protest against govt
A council candidate organising a public protest to support Pauline Hanson is calling for “revolution against the government”. Meanwhile, students are expected to ditch school for an Adelaide protest against One Nation.
City of Burnside Beaumont ward candidate Austin Boath has called for a “big protest” similar to the storming of the US Capitol following Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss if Labor re-wins government.
When asked about a post where he advocated for a “civil war” in Australia, the One Nation member said there needed to be a “revolution against the government” if Labor is re-elected.
“If Labor win again, then the people should really take into their own hands the issues with Australia. They should basically protest outside Parliament House, maybe even consider storming it,” he said, clarifying that: “I personally wouldn’t be breaking any laws myself”.
“I think if people basically showed up and said, ‘We’re not going to take this,’ and Australia is going to cease to function as a society by blockading how it is run, then they have no choice but to address us and address the discontent in this nation.”
Boath, who is studying urban and regional planning at Flinders University, has organised a protest in support of Pauline Hanson in response to student protests planned across the nation for August 13 against the One Nation leader.
He is organising the protest with support from the Facebook group “Albo is the worst Prime Minister in Australian History”, and says Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “has not been transparent, especially with the capital gains tax changes, and ultimately I feel like his policies discourage ambitious young people”.
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In a post, Boath said: “You can’t expect you get a luxury location in houso’s [housing trust accommodation]. You get what you’re given. Housos should only be north of grand junction road around Elizabeth so that they stay out of nice areas”.
Asked about this post, Boath said that “I feel like putting them in areas like Burnside, they’re not going to integrate, especially if they’ve got issues with drug addiction.”
Boath claimed there had been “quite a lot of support” for the counter-protest on Facebook but was unsure how many would attend, saying he would document and record the event for his YouTube channel.
“I’m sure there will be a lot of people that won’t give us the time of day, but I wanted to talk to people, have open dialogue, maybe listen to their perspective as well, and just show what the other side looks like because I think it’s quite powerful,” he said.
Adelaide University student Jordan Armstrong, who will be joining an Adelaide protest against Pauline Hanson on August 13, said that students around the country were “deeply disturbed about the historic rise of One Nation and Pauline Hanson”.
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“She said that she’s for a white Australia, thinks domestic violence is a two-way street, thinks workers are lazy and are paid too much,” he said, adding that he expects thousands of high school and university students to turn up across the nation.
“There’s a pretty wide consensus that we don’t want to end up like Trump’s America, that the scenes we’ve seen play out, where ICE is going around and breaking into schools and colleges to kidnap people, we don’t want that to happen here in Australia, and we’re really putting our foot down and saying that we will not allow Hanson’s politics to be normalised”.
Boath said he supported One Nation’s economic policies and thought that immigration levels had been “way too high”, although he took issue with Pauline Hanson’s comments that there are “no good Muslims”.
“I’m not concerned about who’s coming into this country – I’m more concerned about how the people coming into this country are interacting with this country,” he said.
In one post on the Facebook page, Boath said: “Importing large numbers of low-skilled migrants from high-crime, dysfunctional countries – then responding with bigger police forces, more surveillance powers, expanded prisons, and endless social programs – is like deliberately pumping sewer water into the city taps and then bragging about how many new hospitals you’re building”.
Asked about the post, Boath said, “I feel like it’s important to bring in people with skills and also do a background check”.
Armstrong thought the comments were “extremely fascist rhetoric”.
“That’s why we need to actually really take a stand against this because there’s been such a whitewashing of the politics of One Nation bringing them into the political mainstream,” he said.
“This is just really, really disturbing, and I think students will [come] out in force to say that we won’t put up with this.”
Boath said that if elected as a councillor, his top issues would be addressing council debt and making rate rises more consistent.
One Nation declined to comment for this story.
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