The case is now in its seventh year and there is no sign of it ending. They want to silence me so they can silence your efforts to protect your kids and grandkids.

CAPTION: This is one of the images the drag queens are demanding in their legal case against me that I delete from my blog.

My lawyers at the Human Rights Law Alliance have stood with me every step of the way. Today, Principal Lawyer John Steenhof issued this update and appeal for support:

Dear Friend,

In May, Lyle Shelton walked into the Queensland Supreme Court. Again.

Six years. That is how long this case has been running.

And still there is no clear outcome for Lyle.

Here is how it began: in 2020, a Brisbane library held a story-time event for young children, hosted by adult drag performers.

When the story blew up in the press, Lyle Shelton did what a lot of parents do. He expressed his views online.

He wrote a blog criticising the drag performers and warned that these were “dangerous role models for children,” and that little ones should not be introduced to harmful sexualised ideologies before they are even old enough for school.

That was it. A blog post. A father speaking up for the innocence of children.

For those posts, the drag performers lodged a complaint against him under Queensland’s anti-vilification laws. The complaint alleged that Lyle’s post incited violence, serious contempt or severe ridicule against the drag performers.

Those complaints have now consumed six years of his life.

Make a gift today to help fund the next stage of Lyle’s defence and to help protect every parent’s freedom to speak up for our children.

In 2023, Lyle won. The tribunal found that his advocacy did not amount to vilification. He had done nothing unlawful.

Then the drag performers appealed the decision.

In February this year, his win was set aside by an appeals tribunal.

The appeals tribunal ruled that the original decision had applied the wrong legal test for vilification.

Lyle tried to review alleged flaws in this decision, but in June, the Supreme Court declined to step in. Now the matter is back with the appeals tribunal to determine if Lyle is protected by the free speech protections in the Queensland law.

So Lyle must continue to fight his case again with the likelihood that a final appeals Tribunal decision will require appeal to the Supreme Court.

No final answer.

And a demand from the other side that he pay their court costs and increased penalties if he is found guilty.

Who knows how many more years it will take?

Lyle spoke up to defend the innocence of children.

The legal process has punished him every day since.

If defending children can cost a man six years of his life, think about the next parent, teacher, or grandparent who sees something wrong.

They will stay silent and that silence is the goal.

You can refuse to let that happen.

I lead the team at the Human Rights Law Alliance defending Lyle.

I have sat with him through this, and I can tell you he is not giving up.

But resolve alone does not pay for a defence.

Lyle is still standing for one reason.

Ordinary Australians like you have stood behind him at every stage.

Your support pays for the lawyers, and for the court work his defence needs.

It has carried him through six years. It can carry him through the seventh.

Will you make your most generous gift today, whether it is $50, $150, or $500, to help reach the $47,500 goal by 31 August and stand with Lyle for the fight ahead?

For the freedom to speak up for our children,

John Steenhof
Principal Lawyer
Human Rights Law Alliance

P.S. Lyle won in court, then had his win taken away and was sent back to the start. Please make a gift today to help reach the $47,500 goal by 31 August, so HRLA can keep defending him after six years of legal proceedings.

I’d be grateful for your support. This fight is relentless but it must be won if freedom of speech is to prevail. Thank you.

While the Liberals were late, Family First called on the Prime Minister to apologise for his smutty “melon” remarks about the Japanese Prime Minister’s breasts more than a month ago.

At the time of writing, Anthony Albanese and his hypocritical female ministers were doubling down.

All they are doing is further trashing trust with a public long cynical about their politicians.

That brings me to the Tomago aluminium smelter near Newcastle.

While dodging questions about melons, the Prime Minister was there yesterday to announce a $2.5 billion bailout of an industry Liberal and Labor politicians have all but destroyed.

Bi-partisan policy on net zero in a quest to “save the planet” has meant Australia cannot smelt aluminium anymore without taxpayers propping it up.

That’s because the “energy transition” to intermittent wind and solar can’t support jobs-creating heavy industry.

Can a nation inflict more self-harm upon its people?

Not only is our PM morally bankrupt, he is also making us literally bankrupt.

Family First Party News - I hope you don’t mind, I am the National Director

I’m excited about next week’s National Conference in Sydney. More than 100 people have registered for the Friday evening dinner with Sall Grover and 150 for the Saturday conference.

Tickets are still available for the dinner and conference but registrations must close at midnight tomorrow. So be quick. It’s going to be a great weekend.

Turn The Tide book tour

I’ve loved being on the road with my new book. Heaps more events are coming up and for a full list, please go to our events page.

I’ll be in South East Queensland and northern NSW in the last week of August.

Order your copy at Turnthetide.au.

Podcast

I’m thrilled with the response to the re-vamped podcast. Last week’s deep dive into Lakemba Mosque and its application to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer attracted our biggest audience so far.

This week I continue with the troubling theme of radical Islam in Australia, interviewing Rev Mark Leach who was chased through the streets of Sydney by Muslims threatening to slit his throat.

📺 YouTube

🎙Spotify

The above is taken from my E-news letter which goes to 54,000 Family First supporters and members each week. You can sign up here.

Next week, the product of those weeks will be released.

My new book, Turn the Tide - A Letter to the Antipodean Church, is an attempt to prod the church into the battle for the very survival of our two nations.

If talk of national survival sounds extreme, please be assured smarter people than me are warning of the very real prospect of civilisational collapse – most notably those behind the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.

It is my conviction that we are losing our nations without a fight.

History shows that serious Christians have always been at the forefront of battles to secure justice and turn back assaults on the vulnerable.

The Bible, in my humble opinion, is the mission handbook for discipling nations.

But as children are slaughtered in the womb on an industrial scale, children are told their gender is fluid (with devastatingly harmful consequences), children are told their nations are not legitimate, children are told lies about the definition of marriage and children are told the economy which once provided a pathway to flourishing must now be sacrificed to a climate cult, the church is largely silent.

These and the accompanying relentless assault on freedom of speech and religion are existential threats.

Whenever I speak about what is occurring in politics and culture, the cry goes up, “Where is the church?”

It is the question of our time.

I don’t claim to conclusively answer it, but I’ve tried.

My hope is that Turn the Tide will spark conversation then action. Because the hour is late.

A special pre-release offer is available until next Wednesday, July 15. For $39.97, including postage and handling, you will receive a signed copy.

Don’t miss out on the pre-release offer, order your copy today. All proceeds go to the work of Family First.

Thank you!

*A bach is a New Zealand word for beach shack.

Family First National Conference

Early Bird registrations for the third annual Family First National Conference close on July 31.

We’re privileged to have Sall Grover of the now infamous “Giggle v Tickle” court battle speaking at the conference dinner on the Friday evening.

She will share how she has been dragged through the courts at a cost of millions of dollars because Australian law says a man can be a woman. Her story is powerful.

Dinner tickets are available here.

The Saturday line-up is our best yet with experts addressing the big issues facing our nation. A highlight will be our live cross to child advocate Katy Faust in Seattle.

Themed “Mobilise”, National Conference is your party’s jumping off point for the up-coming Victorian and New South Wales elections.

Get your conference tickets here.

Podcast

It was a joy for me to catch up with Andrea Williams of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre when I was in London recently.

Ridiculed and ignored, even by Christians who should have known better, time has proven her early warnings right.

We ignore our prophets at our peril.

Andrea is one of my heroes.

Watch on YouTube

Listen on Spotify

No one should be surprised.

Our laws and our cultural attitudes are porn permissive. Criminal grubs are taking a mile with the inch we give them.

Tragically, the innocent look of “fresh 18” is highly sought on OnlyFans. Who would of thought that?

The platform of course vehemently denies it ever grooms girls to be ready to go at 18 once becoming what it euphemistically calls “content creators” is legal.

Others are doing that work for them, it is reported.

If elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council next March, I’ll move a private member’s bill to make it an offence to groom a child for OnlyFans.

Exhibit A of our culture’s low view of the dignity of women was the Prime Minister telling the Bush Deep podcast that if his marriage to Jodie Haydon failed, he’d like to have sex with Kyle Minogue.

Our culture’s low view of women starts at the top.

Anthony Albanese has since apologised unreservedly for those creepy uncle remarks but not for a myriad of other inappropriate comments laced through the entire sordid exchange with host Nikki Osborne, a supposed comedian.

He is yet to say sorry for remarks and gestures (there was whisky on the podcast set) about the Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s breasts when referring to her gift of melons.

He must apologise for this as well. The Japanese PM is a key ally against the Chinese Communist Party, which just lobbed a nuclear capable ICBM into our backyard.

Australia needs a stateman in the Lodge in these fraught times, not a politician trying to look cool to a generation raised on online porn.

When such a demeaning view of women is the standard set in the Lodge, how do young men learn that consuming females as products through OnlyFans is sexist, misogynist and ultimately harmful to the young “content creators” who have been lured into allowing themselves to be exploited by Big Porn?

By the way, where are the Labor women? Platitudes about equal numbers of women in the caucus should not be a leave pass for treating them as sex objects.

So rife is porn culture that when One Nation candidate David Farley, now a member of the House of Representatives, was found to be sharing OnlyFans content on his Facebook page, he brushed it off.

He claimed to not know what OnlyFans was, but he didn’t deny he’d intentionally shared images of semi-naked young women.

One Nation, which is actively courting the votes of the Christian constituency, continues to stand by Farley.

A key party official for One Nation in Victoria, Bianca Colecchia, is a proud former manager of a strip club.

One Nation seems to think luring young women into “sex work” is fine.

It is widely acknowledged that OnlyFans puts many young women on a pathway to stripping and prostitution.

OnlyFans of course says it only acts within the law and has no association with those at the underage end of its supply chain.

Why be a lawyer or a doctor when upon turning 18 OnlyFans promises you fortune taking your clothes off for men looking at you through their smart phones?

A civil society would not be creating such employment pathways, but politicians have made the exploitation of young women for the entertainment of men a state-sanctioned career option.

All the evidence is that prostitution is inherently exploitative, yet Australian politicians continue to resist tried and true Nordic policy which criminalises the male buyers of women.

If both the left and right of politics don’t have moral clarity about the exploitation of young women through the ubiquitous porn trade, what hope is there for protecting our daughters from harm and our sons from a life of relational dysfunction?

There’s nothing more toxic for marriage and family than pornography. Yet families with a married mother and father raising children is the building block of a flourishing society.

The job of every parliamentarian from the PM down should be to protect that precious group unit for it is the bedrock of our society.

Why poison them by glorifying porn on OnlyFans or a smutty podcast?

De-sensitised by the false promises of the sexual revolution, political leaders on the left and the right simply don’t get it.

Lyle Shelton is the National Director of the Family First Party and its lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council at the up-coming election.

It’s early days and there’s no guarantee of success.

But a start is being made.

It was great to be at ARC with members of the Family First team - Jack Snelling, Deepa Mathew and Amanda and Christopher Brohier.

A key source of inspiration is the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference.

I was privileged to attend the first in 2023 in London and then return last week for the third.

Versions have been held in Australia, the most recent last February called Aspire.

It’s easy to be cynical. Conferences can degenerate to talkfests. And over three days there was a lot of talking.

But I’ve come home with renewed hope.

Serious people are applying serious effort to the serious problems Western countries like Australia, the UK and America face.

When the young have been taught to hate their civilisational inheritance, they can’t afford a house, families can’t hold together, suicide is a leading cause of death for young men, radical Islam is muscling in, we are destroying the source of our wealth by shuttering cheap energy, debt and government spending is out of control and political leaders continue to offer no answers - just more of the same managed decline, it is difficult not to lie on the floor in the foetal position.

ARC is reminding us it doesn’t have to be this way.

Executive chair Baroness Philippa Stroud says enough of the deconstruction, it’s time for reconstruction.

“This far and no further,” she told the 4000 strong crowd on the opening day at London’s Olympia convention centre in Hammersmith.

Who else talks like this?

Davos for conservatives, as the left-wing Guardian dubbed ARC, is not a bad descriptor. For ARC offers a better story.

Davos preaches response to “climate crisis” as a collective organising principle, the result being “you will own nothing and be happy”.

ARC preaches taking responsibility that leads to flourishing and abundance.

It begins with self and progresses to family, community, the environment and the nation.

I know what vision is more compelling.

But there’s a mountain to climb, a conversation to shift.

As ARC advisory board member Konstantin Kisin pointed out, countries like the UK are like the Titanic.

“We’ve tried everything except changing course.”

This was a reference to the Prime Minister swap taking place last week from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham – Britain’s seventh PM in 10 years.

Australia’s revolving door of PMs, only temporarily halted by the lacklustre Anthony Albanese, also screams leadership crisis.

“It’s like soiling your pants and changing your shirts,” Kisin quipped.

The liberal project in the West has gone off track and again, the ever-insightful Kisin reminded us that what once sought freedom from tyranny now seeks it from reality.

The LGBTQA+ gender-fluid demand is exhibit A.

Hence Stroud’s insistence that we begin again to focus on re-laying the foundations of Western civilisation.

If you want the good old days back, the legitimate cry of the orange wave sweeping Australian politics and the Reform insurgency in the UK, it’s vital to understand what made the good old days good.

More so than the first ARC conference, last week pushed the envelope on Christianity as the source of what built that which we’ve lost.

While of course not always applied well, Christianity is nonetheless unique in world views for containing within itself the capacity to confess its wrongs, repent and return home to the truth.

As Os Guiness said, there’s no other framework upon which to build a society of freedom and flourishing.

“Confession is going on the record against yourself”, Guiness, who is related to the founders of the dark brew, said.

At an ARC dinner in Pall Mall I attended, Guiness said the inability to confess wrong was Trump’s problem.

That which began with a burning bush in the desert and smoke on a mountain provided a model of law and government based on the consent of the governed that is equal to none.

In setting up a system of government based on the Sinai covenant, the American revolutionaries were simply demanding of their British overlords their inheritance of freedom charted from Runnymede to the Glorious Revolution.

Law based on morality and objective truth, not simply the will-to-power whims of a king or our modern woke elites hell-bent on cancel culture.

But as Ayaan Hirsi Ali pointed out, Western politics keeps trying atheistic communism in the hope that only if it is done differently this time it will work.

Other foundations to be re-built include a return to the reality of gender.

To that effect Australia’s Sall Grover embarrassed our nation by reminding an international audience she lost her “what is a woman” court case, with judges ruling a biological man can be a woman.

Dr Hilary Cass, whose review led to the closure of Britain’s child gender clinics, was a further reminder that Australian politicians continue to cover their eyes.

Katy Faust, whose quest it is to restore children’s rights by overturning same-sex marriage in the US, proclaimed that marriage is what secures a child’s right to his or her mother and father.

Adults have no right to tamper with this, even though the West has caved. It’s rare to hear this at a public policy conference.

With the West awash in unsustainable debt, ARC is big on economic flourishing and there is no greater key to economic flourishing than abundant, cheap and reliable electricity.

While the UK’s Ed Miliband and his Australian counterpart Chris Bowen wage their war on the living standards of those who can’t afford luxury beliefs, Bjon Lomborg reminded ARC that $16 trillion has been spent on the so-called energy transition and there has been no energy transition.

Kemi Badenoch, the much-improved UK Conservative Leader who should not be written off, told ARC she would use North Sea oil and gas to bring down electricity bills.

That is anathema to the woke elites in Whitehall (and Canberra) but shows the conversation is shifting in the right direction.

David Cameron, Theresa May or Rishi Sunak would not have said that. Liz Truss might have but that probably explains why shy only lasted 49 days.

ARC has been an oasis for people like me to certify our sanity.

Serious people – some of the world’s top intellects are now more fully engaged in the culture war. And it is a war for the soul of civilisation.

Stroud’s final address was emotional and passionate. It was appropriate.

After all, our kids and grandkids, who for the first time will inherit conditions worse than their parents’ generation, are facing a hard future created by weak men.

Stroud quoted Aragorn’s battle cry from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings where, facing hopeless odds at the Black Gate of Mordor, he said: “A day may come when the courage of Men fails... but it is not this day... This day we fight!”

It was for a series titled “Events that Changed Australia” and the episode for which I was filmed, “The Fight for Marriage Equality”, finally aired on Wednesday night.

It chronicled the political campaign waged by LGBTIQA+ political activists to change the definition of marriage in law so that same-sex couples could marry.

I was the only voice from the side which fought to protect the definition of marriage. Sadly, it was a predictably one-side presentation.

Broadcaster David Astle talked up violence around the 2017 marriage plebiscite saying “the fighting was ferocious” without giving any credible examples.

The only images of fighting and violence Channel 9 could find was of people draped in rainbow flags and yet they sought to portray it as two-sided.

My recounting to Channel 9 of activists violently jumping on stage with me and other speakers at our rally in Melbourne in 2017 ended up on the cutting room floor.

Of course, the fire-bombing of the ACL office in 2016 was ignored, a rare act of pre-Bondi domestic terrorism perpetrated by a same-sex marriage activist and covered up by the Australian Federal Police.

The Yes Campaign’s Sally Rugg got generous coverage including her almost tearful recounting of our “hurtful” arguments to preserve marriage.

There was a grab of me warning that same-sex marriage would lead to schools teaching radical LGBTQA+ ideology – something that has been turbo-charged even in childcare centres since 2017 and is now every normal parent’s worst nightmare.

A grab from an SBS interview where I said same-sex marriage would lead to children being denied the love of their mother or father was played.

Rugg, lip quivering, said our arguments that children would be hurt were “homophobic, deeply wrong and deeply traumatising”.

Seriously? What is “homophobic” or traumatising about pointing out that a child has the right to the love of his or her mother?

Same-sex marriage denies that right, not because of tragedy or desertion, but to suit the lifestyle desires of adults. The ethics of this needs serious debate, not cancel culture.

If that was the most hurtful and “homophobic” thing from our side that the Yes campaign could come up with in an hour of one-way television traffic going their way, surely it’s time to drop the demonisation of those of us who still believe marriage is between one man and one woman.

It’s time the cancel cry “homophobe” was dropped in favour of dialogue.

I will never stop fighting for marriage to be restored to its true definition.

No serious person denies the dignity and humanity of same-sex attracted people and our campaign to preserve marriage in 2017 never did that, despite constant assertions in the documentary to the contrary.

While ever activists seek to induct children into gender fluid ideology and sexualise them through queer culture events such as drag queen story time, I won’t stop fighting.

It steals from our children and grandchildren who are bequeathed debt growing to $1.25 trillion over the forward estimates.

There’s no hope of returning to where Peter Costello left us 20 years ago.

Last night’s budget unveiled an eye watering $77 billion in net tax increases.

If it was a responsible budget taxes would be going down, not sending the cost of government up.

Budget deficits of $20 to $30 billion continue over the forward estimates.

This is not a budget in “good nick”, to use Jim Chalmers’ favourite phrase.

Nothing fuels wealth-sapping inflation more than government spending which continues out of control having risen 40pc of GDP over the past 10 years.

Inflation-driven interest rates rises are costing the average mortgage holder $27,000 per year.

Big government spending is the fault of both major parties, Jim Chalmers is just building on the post-Covid mess the Coalition left.

The workers’ offset hand-out starting in 2027 is $5 per week, less than the price of a small double shot flat white.

Borrowed money as cost-of-living relief is not relief. It’s like paying your kids’ pocket money on the credit card when it is already maxed out.

Bracket creep from PAYG taxpayers is the government’s fasted growing source of revenue.

Labor cares not for the workers.

But it is not just the nation’s finances that are trashed.

When the estimation of politicians is at rock bottom, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers brazenly break election promises on negative gearing, capital gains tax and family trusts.

Why should we ever believe anything they say again?

Speaking of broken promises, electricity prices coming down by $275? Forget it.

A government that can’t control spending wants to raise more money by taxing what little wealth people have.

Most people who have investment properties are not wealthy – most have just one, not five as is the caricature of the politics of envy stoked by Labor.

They are doing what little they can to get ahead and lessen their reliance on the welfare system in retirement.

At least negative gearing, which is simply offsetting property expenses against tax like any other business, and the capital gains tax discount will still apply to new builds.

But CGT increases are not about intergeneration equity, as the government would have us believe.

All that does is deny young people the opportunity and incentive to acquire modest wealth that their parents could.

It locks kids out of aspiration.

This is the class warfare Bill Shorten took to the 2019 election and had rejected.

What is the answer?

Families need tax relief through income splitting that lowers family tax and allows mums and dads the flexibility to stay at home and care for young children.

This was ruled out by the anti-family Finance Minister Katy Gallagher this week.

Taxing family trusts removes the only vestige of income splitting left.

Australia has wealth for toil but it is tied up in government red, green and black tape.

The way out is for government to live within its means and unlock the comparative advantage our nation has in cheap fossil fuel energy to power industry.

But that would require both vision and hard decisions.

Our political class is incapable of both.

Let’s start with the basics.

The journalist repeatedly described me as a “politician.” That is simply not accurate. I do not hold elected office. I am the National Director of the Family First Party and a candidate for the NSW Legislative Council, but that is not the same thing as being a politician. It’s a basic distinction, and one that a journalist working for a metropolitan newspaper should know.

More importantly, the article failed to report the substance of my original concerns — the very reason I’ve been sued.

Back in 2020, I wrote a blog raising concerns about a “Drag Queen Story Time” event held in a Brisbane City Council public library. My concern was — and remains — about the promotion of radical gender fluid ideology and the normalisation of adult-themed performance culture to children.

I also raised concerns about their social media presence (examples below) and asserted this made them dangerous role models for children, given that Drag Queen Story Time is designed by LGBTQA+ political activists to target two-to-eight-year-olds.

None of that made it into the article.

There was also no mention of the fact that those suing me have demanded censorship of my blog — including material exposing the explicit online content of regular children’s drag performers such as “Frock Hudson” (pictured below). All of this context matters. It goes directly to why I spoke out and it goes directly to what I believe most parents would consider appropriate or otherwise for children’s role models.

Instead, readers of The Courier-Mail were given a narrow and incomplete account that reduces a serious public interest issue to a personality conflict.

Then there’s what happened in court last Friday.

What should have been a straightforward procedural step in my application for judicial review in the Supreme Court of Queensland turned into an extraordinary attempt by the other side’s lawyers, who are in part funded by the taxpayer, to have me pay their legal costs — even if I win.

Yes, you read that correctly.

After dragging me through six years of litigation, they now want protection from costs while I seek a ruling from the Supreme Court — a jurisdiction where costs are normally awarded to the successful party.

What a joke.

Let’s be clear about the history.

In 2023, I was cleared of vilification by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. That should have been the end of the matter.

Instead, the complainants — Dwayne Hill and Johnny Valkyrie — appealed. Earlier this year, an appeal tribunal allowed their appeal, but crucially, it did not find that I had vilified them.

Now I am seeking a judicial review of that appeal decision, as is my right.

This case is not about personalities. It is not about drag performers. It is about whether Australians are free to speak up about issues of public concern, especially when it comes to the wellbeing of children.

It is about whether raising legitimate questions about cultural trends and public events can land you in years of costly legal battles.

And it is about whether taxpayer-funded legal mechanisms — and in some cases taxpayer-assisted legal representation — are being used to quash free speech.

As my lawyer John Steenhof from the Human Rights Law Alliance has said many times, “the process becomes the punishment.”

Six years on, I know exactly what that means.

I will continue to stand my ground — not just for myself, but for every Australian who believes that freedom of speech still matters, and that speaking up to protect children from questionable influences is not something to be punished, but something to be encouraged.

I’m back in court on May 27.

The drag queens’ solicitors, the LGBT Legal Service, receive taxpayer funds. My lawyers, the Human Rights Law Alliance, receive no government assistance and my legal defence is entirely funded by freedom loving Australians. This has already been a long and costly fight and it is sadly not over. To keep free speech alive, please donate here.

Many of you will know that I was exonerated by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal back in 2023, but the drag queens immediately appealed.

The appeal tribunal reached a decision last week, setting aside the earlier ruling.

That means I must go back to court. The alternative is to have free speech trampled.

Not just mine - but that of other Australians - as my case had already set a precedent which resulted in other free speech wins.

The drag queens and their taxpayer-funded law firm have pursued me relentlessly. This new decision means my case will move into a seventh year of litigation.

While disappointing, importantly, last week’s ruling does not make any final finding. But make no mistake, the drag queens and the political activists backing their action want me punished and silenced.

This bizarre saga began when I wrote several blog posts critiquing a Drag Queen Story Time event held at a Brisbane City Council library way back in 2020.

My concern has always been child protection.

I believe children should not be exposed to early sexualisation through sexualised role models and they should not be exposed to role models who promote gender fluid ideology.

I published confronting and unsavoury material from the drag queens’ public social media accounts.

Some of this material promotes the life-long consequences of gender fluid ideology, some of it simply reflects the sexualised world view of LGBTQA+ drag queens.

I wrote about the the suitability of proponents of harmful gender fluid ideology and radical LGBTQA+ sexual expressionism being appropriate role models for children.

These blog posts became the subject of complaints which continue to entangle me in this long-running legal struggle for freedom of speech.

Australia’s regime of anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws – known as “hate speech” laws are deeply flawed.

They make the process the punishment. That in turn has a chilling effect on important public discussion.

These laws cause good people to self-censor and to walk past things about which they know they should speak up for fear of litigation.

I now have received two completely different judgements after six years of lawfare against me.

If courts themselves cannot agree on the correct legal standard, how can ordinary Australians possibly know where the legal line is?

One of the most important jobs politicians have is to protect the freedoms of Australians.

This case is not just about me. It is about whether all Australians are still free to express views about child protection and other contested cultural issues without facing years of litigation.

I want to thank my lawyer John Steenhof, his incredible team at the Human Rights Law Alliance and the other allied lawyers who have generously represented me.

I also want to thank those who have donated to my legal defence. Like most Australians, my family does not have the means for this type of litigation.

Unlike our opponents, my legal team receives no taxpayer support.

Finally, I want to make a point about the type of country we think we are.

Next month is ANZAC Day when we remember those who fought and died for our freedoms.

Politicians would do well to consider why they are currently presiding over deeply flawed laws which mean that the freedoms the ANZAC generation took for granted no longer apply in today’s Australia.

I’m not the only one caught up in litigation because of stupid laws. Sall Grover, Kirralie Smith, Jasmene Sussex, Dr Jillian Spencer and many others should not be in court.

None of us who grew up in this country expected our political class would let us down so badly.

My message to the politicians who are not working to repeal these anti-free speech laws – and that is pretty much all politicians - is simple.

If you won’t fight for our freedoms, please don’t turn up at ANZAC Day and pretend to honour those who did.

For those new to this issue, the LNP in late 2024 passed a motion in Parliament prohibiting discussion of abortion during its four-year term of government.

This was despite harrowing testimony from midwife Louise Adsett backed up by Queensland Health figures showing 50 babies per year are born alive and left to die after failed abortions.

Late-term abortion has boomed since 2018 when Queensland followed Victoria and Tasmania in legalising abortion-to-birth.

That’s right, a perfectly healthy baby with a healthy mother can be killed right up to the point of delivery.

Since 2018, Liberal governments in New South Wales and South Australia followed suit.

WA, under Labor, legalised it in 2024.

Tragically, Queensland LNP Christians, who I’ve heard speak passionately at pro-life rallies and fundraisers, doubled down on the gag.

They didn’t even allow Katter’s motion to unblock the gag to be debated.

The instigation for attempting to overturn the gag was revelations from a Townsville hospital whistleblower that 16-week-old baby Samuel had survived his abortion only to be left to die, sucking his thumb.

A photo was released on social media, only to be censored by big tech.

Mackay MP Nigel Dalton (pictured below) was the only LNP member to support free speech on behalf of our most vulnerable humans, crossing the floor of Parliament in defiance of his cowardly colleagues in support of Katter’s attempt to break the gag.

In a video interview with pro-life activist and lawyer Dr Joanna Howe, Dalton apologised for acquiescing to Premier David Crisafulli’s captain’s call to support Labor’s abortion-to-birth-laws during the 2024 election campaign.

He apologised for naively voting for the gag in December 2024 during his first week of Parliament as a new MP.

Such courage and humility is almost unheard of in Australian politics.

Family First has long called out Crisafulli and the LNP for its embrace of abortion-to-birth.

Sadly, Queensland does not have an upper house which makes it difficult for pro-life minor parties to win seats.

Family First is working to put Deepa Mathew into the South Australian Parliament next month and myself into the NSW Parliament in March 2027.

Despite being let down by the LNP’s large contingent of Christian MPs, Dalton being the heroic exception, a prominent Christian leader joined the pro-life cause.

Pastor Joel Chelliah, president of the Australian Christian Churches, spoke on Monday night at the pro-life rally.

He apologised for being a later-comer to the fight for our most vulnerable.

The disappointment of the LNP clinging to its callous gag is outstripped by Dalton and Chelliah’s humility and resolve to engage the fight.

It was also great to see what is probably un unprecedented display of unity from pro-life groups who came together at very short notice to mobilise thousands of people in front of the Queensland Parliament last Monday night.

The LNP might be gagging Parliament, but they have only emboldened the pro-life community, whose message will win over public support once the truth of our grisly abortion industry is properly exposed.

Lyle Shelton is the National Director of the Family First Party and its lead candidate for the Legislative Council at the up-coming NSW election.

With government spending at a 40-year high (pandemic aside), the Reserve Bank was forced this week to lift interest rates by another 25 basis points. That single decision will cost millions of families thousands of dollars they simply do not have.

What makes this so galling is the bare-faced dishonesty from Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

When it comes to their Whitlamesque largesse with your money — actually borrowed money, because they’ve already spent what you earned — they wave it away with a casual “nothing to see here”.

But there is something to see. And families are feeling it every month.

It’s an iron law of economics: government cash, even when disguised as “cost-of-living relief”, fuels inflation like petrol on a dumpster fire. Add to that the reckless so-called “energy transition”, and you have a perfect storm of higher prices, higher interest rates, and more pain still to come.

Australia’s cost-of-living crisis is politician-induced.

That’s why Family First is determined to put principled candidates like Deepa Mathew into Parliament — people who will actually fight to take pressure off families.

With just seven weeks to go, Deepa’s campaign for the South Australian Legislative Council is tracking well, even with One Nation’s surge. There is still room in state upper houses for Family First.

While we share some common ground with One Nation, Family First’s point of difference is clear: candidates of strong Christian character, with a laser-like focus on restoring the natural family.

Strong families make strong nations — yet today’s political class puts family, faith, freedom and life last.

You and I are here to change that.

As the blogs below show, it’s been a big news week.

Victims of LGBTQA+ gender conversion therapy are finally starting to win. In the United States, a woman who had her breasts removed at just 16 years of age has won a $2 million payout. No amount of money can restore what was taken from her — including the chance to breastfeed her own children — but this verdict is an important first step.

This week, major medical bodies also publicly disavowed mutilating gender-change surgeries on children.

So the question must be asked: what will it take for Australian politicians to act?

In Queensland, the LNP still supports the suspension and punishment of Queensland Children’s Hospital whistleblower Dr Jillian Spencer. None of my contacts inside the party can explain this injustice.

Still in Queensland — and still with whistleblowers — brave midwives have come forward with yet more evidence of babies being born alive after abortions and left to die. The latest case is baby Samuel, whose image went viral online despite Facebook’s attempts to censor it.

Candidate recruitment also remains a priority as we prepare for the upcoming South Australian, Victorian and NSW elections.

Finally, the Macquarie Street Political Podcast, which I host, is back. This week I share interviews with key family and religious freedom advocates from my recent trip to the United States. I’m confident you’ll value their insights into the pro-family and pro-life progress being made under the Trump Administration.

As always, thank you for standing with Family First.

Lyle Shelton is National Director and lead NSW Legislative Council candidate for the Family First Party.

At a time when yet more serious and disturbing allegations are emerging from inside Queensland’s health system, silencing elected representatives is anti-democratic.

Multiple Queensland health workers have now come forward as whistleblowers. What they have revealed should chill every decent Australian.

A chilling image of dead “baby Samuel” (pictured), provided by a whistleblower, is circulating online.

Yet instead of transparency, accountability and open debate, the LNP has imposed a gag — preventing its own MPs from speaking freely in parliament about abortion.

The LNP did this in the wake of whistleblower Louise Adsett’s harrowing testimony before Parliament in 2024 about her first hand experiences of watching babies born alive after abortions and left to die, sometimes gasping for breath for hours.

Parliament exists to scrutinise power, to give voice to the voiceless and to confront injustice. When politicians are muzzled on matters of life and death, democracy itself is diminished.

Family First believes Queenslanders deserve the truth — not secrecy, not political management, and not party discipline enforced at the expense of vulnerable children.

Family First encourages everyone to join a rally being held next Monday, February 9, to shine a light on the latest whistleblower revelations of babies being born alive in Queensland hospitals and left to die.

Monday 9 February

5.30–6.30pm

Speaker’s Corner, outside Queensland Parliament

2A George Street, Brisbane

Here is a list of the LNP MPs, taken from Hansard, who in December 2024 voted to ban discussion on abortion in the Parliament for the entirety of this term:

AYES, 50: LNP, 50—Baillie, Barounis, Bates, Bennett, Bleijie, Boothman, Camm, Crandon, Crisafulli, Dalton, Dillon, Doolan, Dooley, Field, Frecklington, Gerber, Head, Hutton, Hunt, B. James, T. James, Janetzki, G. Kelly, Kempton, Kirkland, Krause, Langbroek, Last, Leahy, Lee, Lister, Mander, Marr, McDonald, Mickelberg, Minnikin, Molhoek, Morton, Nicholls, O’Connor, Perrett, Poole, Purdie, Rowan, Simpson, Stevens, Stoker, Watts, Vorster, Young.

Family First urges Queenslanders to contact these MPs and urge them to either overturn the gag or defy it in the wake of the latest revelations of babies being born alive and left to die.

Media@familyfirstparty.au

The world’s biggest annual human rights protest is not for Gaza or trans rights.

It’s for the right of unborn babies to live and for their mothers to not be abused by abortion.

Yesterday I had the privilege of joining 100,000 people, overwhelmingly young, marching up Independence Avenue past the US Capitol building in Washington DC demanding politicians act.

To be fair, federal US Republican law makers have done a lot.

Australian politicians could learn.

In Donald Trump’s first term he put orthodox justices on the Supreme Court who do not seek to divine from the Constitution rights that never entered the heads of the founders.

The result was the overturning of the 1973 Roe v Wade judgement which undemocratically mandated abortion on all 50 states.

An estimated 65 million babies have been killed since.

I didn’t think I would see Roe fall in my lifetime.

But marchers have marched every year since that abominable decision. Prayer and persistence work.

But the battle is far from over, which is why marchers still turn up in the dead of Washington’s winter.

Roe’s overthrow didn’t ban abortion in the US, it just restored decision making to elected representatives of the people in the US state houses.

Some like Texas, have actually banned abortion, saving countless lives from death and women from injury.

Most US states still allow abortion in some form, although many now have “heartbeat laws” which protect a baby from the moment a heartbeat can be detected, usually at around six weeks from conception.

The chemical abortion drug, mifepristone, is rife in the US and was a big focus of yesterday’s protest.

Widely available also in Australia, mifepristone cuts off nutrition from the mother so the baby dies in utero of starvation.

He or she is then flushed down the toilet, to the heartbreak of many mothers who regret this “choice”.

Research released last year from the Ethics and Public Policy Centre (EPPC) reveals severe side effects like sepsis infection, haemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days in a whopping 10pc of mothers who take it.

Medical authorities in the US and Australia deny this but can’t refute it.

These and other facts which chip away at the false narrative believed in the west that abortion is a harmless and empowering choice echoed across the National Mall at a rally ahead of the march.

Sarah Hurm (pictured below) told her story of falling pregnant with her fourth child at 26.

Her then boyfriend told her it was a bad look to have four kids from three different fathers.

After taking the pill, she immediately regretted it and Googled ways to reverse its effect.

She was put in touch with a pregnancy help centre which gave her medication and her son is now thriving.

None of that was reported by the large mainstream media contingent, who continue to be gatekeepers of the abortion narrative.

The copy of the Washington Post I purchased at the airport on the way out didn’t even cover the march.

Thankfully the legacy media’s control is broken because of alterative and social media.

Donald Trump gave a video greeting and urged the marchers to keep up the fight.

Imagine if an Australian PM or Premier supported one of growing marches held each year in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth.

The Pope, who as a college student once stood in our shoes, sent a written statement of support.

Vice-President JD Vance appeared in person, delivering a powerful 20-minute address.

He said:

We remember that in the ancient pagan world, discarding children was routine.

From the skeletons in brothels to the child sacrifice of the Mayans, the mark of barbarism is that we treat babies like inconveniences to be discarded rather than the blessings to cherish that they are.

But the inheritance of our civilization is something else: the fact that, as Scripture tells us, each life is fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator.

The March for Life, my friends, it’s not just about a political issue. As important as all this politics stuff is, it is about whether we will remain a civilization under God or whether we ultimately return to the paganism that dominated the past.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and long-time pro-life warrior Congressman Chris Smith from New Jersey joined Vance on stage in listing an impressive range of pro-life policy initiatives.

· Planned Parenthood has been defunded;

· The Trump Administration announced ahead of the march on medical research using aborted baby parts;

· Legislation has just been introduced ensuring pregnancy resource centres remain eligible for federal funding under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF);

· Pro-life conditions have been added to the US’s $30 billion in foreign aid so it cannot be used for abortion violence;

· The “Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act,” which will ensure college students are informed of all of their life-affirming options.

Australians, whose politicians protect a legislative regime of abortion-to-birth in every state and territory, can only dream of such wins.

Vance admitted there was more to do. This is a culture war and public support is not yet on the side of life.

Now, I must address an elephant in the room, and I’ve heard the guy over here talking about it, a fear — that some of you have — that not enough progress has been made, that we’re not going fast enough, that our politics have failed to answer the clarion call to life that this march represents and that all of us, I believe, hold in our hearts. And I want you to know that I hear you and that I understand.

There will inevitably be debates within this movement. We love each other, but we’re going to have open conversations about how best to use our political system to advance life, how prudential we must be in the cause of advancing human life. I think these are good, honest and natural debates. And, frankly, they’re not just good for all of you. They help keep people like me honest.

It was inspiring for this Antipodean to be amongst a new generation of American young people committed to the cause of life.

The movement is in good hands and march CEO Jenny Lichter, a former lawyer and White House staffer, is an impressive leader.

It was incredible to witness first-hand the high-level political support and momentum the pro-life movement in the US enjoys.

Charlie Kirk wasn’t there, but his spirit was in the signs with his image emblazoned along with his words “get married and have kids, you won’t regret it”.

Lyle Shelton is National Director of the Family First Party and lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council at the up-coming election.

With the Coalition in chaos and One Nation rising, many supporters are asking: where does this leave Family First?

Before answering that, some context.

January is usually a quiet month in Australian politics.

That ended on December 14, when the Bondi massacre of Jews by Islamic extremists shattered any sense of New Year normality.

The Prime Minister’s botched response was quickly followed by an equally botched response from the Coalition. The result: chaos on the conservative side of politics.

The Liberals handed Anthony Albanese a political lifeline by voting for his so-called “hate speech” laws—laws that do little to address Islamic extremism and instead shield Islam from scrutiny.

You couldn’t make this up. But the radical left never wastes a crisis to advance its anti-free speech agenda, and the Liberals fell for it.

Spooked by the rise and rise of One Nation, the Nationals broke with the Liberals and voted against further restrictions on free speech—blowing up the Coalition in the process. On the speech issue, the Nationals were right.

Last weekend, it briefly appeared the Liberals might also reject another clampdown on free speech. Instead, they cut a late-night deal with Labor, driving yet another stake into the heart of freedom of speech in Australia.

Our “hate speech” laws were already bad. I know this personally: I am currently being sued under them by two LGBTIQA+ drag queens.

Australia did not need more of these laws. What we needed—and still need—is the enforcement of existing laws against incitement to violence and the support of terrorism. That failed to happen after Muslim crowds outside the Sydney Opera House chanted “gas the Jews” on October 9, 2023.

So where does this leave Family First?

Family First exists because the Liberals continue to follow Labor in a steady drift to the radical left—embracing abortion, euthanasia, and cost-of-living-destroying net zero policies at state level.

While there is common ground with One Nation, there is also a clear difference. Family First is unapologetically pro-life, from conception to natural death.

Pauline Hanson, despite her courage on many issues, supports euthanasia and early-term abortion. On matters of life, those differences matter.

With as little as 3–5 per cent of the vote needed—depending on preference flows—there is absolutely a place for Family First in state upper houses. That is where we are focused.

Thanks to generous support from thousands of grass roots donors, Deepa Mathew is well-positioned to win a seat in the South Australian Legislative Council this March. Her campaign is underway in earnest.

In Victoria, State Chair Jane Foreman and her team are recruiting candidates ahead of the November election.

And in New South Wales, the next 13 months are make-or-break for my campaign to win a Family First seat in Macquarie Street.

Despite the turmoil on the centre-right, there has never been a greater need for a party that will fight for family, faith, freedom and life.

There has never been a greater need for a party focused on taking the pressure off families.

We are not distracted by the chaos.

Our mission has not changed.

The team and I are deeply grateful for your continued support as we gear up for a big 2026.

Lyle Shelton is National Director of the Family First Party and its lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council at the up-coming election.

Only days ago, I wrote that there were tentative signs the Liberals might finally rediscover their backbone on free speech and religious freedom. I welcomed indications they were uneasy about Labor’s sweeping new antisemitism, hate and extremism laws and might resist yet another expansion of vague, ill-defined “hate speech” powers.

I was wrong.

In a late-night capitulation, the Liberals folded. They backed Labor’s slightly watered down but still terrible legislation.

In doing so, the Liberals helped drive another stake into the heart of free speech in Australia.

This is not hyperbole. These laws pose a direct threat to mainstream organisations like Family First. Groups that speak plainly about women’s rights, children’s welfare, mass immigration, radical gender ideology or Islamic extremism are now firmly in the firing line.

Under these new laws, activists who dislike our views no longer need to argue their case in the public square. They can simply claim “social, economic or psychological harm” — woolly, subjective terms with no clear legal boundary — and urge the minister to act. Due process can be abandoned. Organisations can be shut down. Criminal proceedings can be launched. All at the behest of people who say their feelings are hurt.

That is not how a liberal democracy is meant to function.

The minister is granted unprecedented discretionary power. This should alarm anyone who believes that the rule of law matters. History shows that once such powers exist, they are rarely used narrowly and never remain confined to their original target.

Let me be clear: Family First condemns antisemitism. We welcomed the banning of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group already prohibited in many European countries and even in Muslim-majority nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Groups with links to terrorism have no place in Australia, and Family First has long called for their banning.

But inciting violence is where the line should be drawn. That is the proper and necessary boundary for the law.

The great irony is that laws against inciting violence already exist. They were not enforced or strengthened when Muslims and left-wing activists openly supported Hamas in the wake of the October 7 atrocities. Instead, the Albanese Government has exploited a crisis of its own making to dust off a long-standing anti-free speech agenda.

And the Liberals have played along.

These new “hate speech” provisions will do little to stop Islamic terror. They will not prevent radicalisation or protect Jewish Australians from genuine threats. What they will do is entrap ordinary Australians and mainstream organisations who refuse to parrot progressive orthodoxy.

I know this from bitter experience. I have spent six years being pursued through the courts under Australia’s already deeply flawed hate speech regime. The process itself becomes the punishment — draining time, resources and energy, while activists cheer from the sidelines.

The Liberals should have learned this lesson. Instead, they chose surrender.

After some promising noises last week, they abandoned the fight for freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In a deal with Australia’s most anti-free speech government, they showed once again that when pressure is applied, the so-called party of Menzies caves.

Credit where it is due: the Nationals and One Nation voted against this legislation. They understood what is at stake. The Liberals are clueless.

The consequences will not be theoretical. Groups like Family First now have to consider the very real possibility that we could be branded a “hate group” simply for articulating views that are mainstream.

That is why these laws must be repealed.

Family First will be standing candidates at the upcoming South Australian, Victorian and New South Wales elections who are committed to rolling back state-based hate speech regimes and restoring freedom of speech and religion. A democracy cannot survive if only one set of views is permitted and dissent is criminalised.

I spoke too soon last week. The Liberals have shown us, once again, who they really are.

And Australians who care about freedom should take note.

Lyle Shelton is National Director of the Family First Party and its lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council at the up-coming election.

That’s good. Better late than never

.For the first time in a very long time, the party is lining up on the right side of the culture wars.

That’s after years of cultural war denial.

In Parliament next week, the Liberals are poised to vote down Anthony Albanese’s “hate speech” laws – the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026.

For a party that has struggled to define a woman and has sat on the sidelines as people like Kirralie Smith, Sal Grover, Jasmine Sussex, Dr Jillian Spencer, me and others are dragged through the courts for exercising free speech, this week’s foray into the fight is refreshing.

The Liberals have recognised that Albanese’s bill will give the hate preachers a leave pass and criminalise mainstream Australians for “harassing” or “intimidating” them.

You can’t make this stuff up, but it is typical of the left. Never waste a crisis to advance your agenda of shutting down speech you hate.

After years of leaving victims of our existing terrible “hate speech” laws to languish, the Liberals have begun to step up.

Are they spooked by polling showing One Nation eating their lunch?

Is it because their “renegade” conservatives Matt Canavan, Alex Antic, Andrew Hastie, Jactina Nampijinpa Price, Henry Pike, Garth Hamilton, Ben Small and others are starting to break the shackles of political correctness and speak out, defying their leader?

It’s probably all the above.

Those of us who have been fighting alone from the fringes suddenly find the major conservative party taking baby steps towards being conservative again.

After the “renegades” moved, even Sussan Ley broke with her woke instincts to name the problem that led to the Bondi massacre: “radical Islam”.

“Across more than 500 pages, the term ‘radical Islam’ is not mentioned once,” Ley wrote on X.

“If the Prime Minister cannot bring himself to name the problem, he cannot be expected to solve it.

“Parliament can and should be able to criminalise antisemitic extremist hate preaching while upholding free speech.”

The afore-mentioned renegades are having some wins.

They dragged Ley and the so-called Liberal “moderates” to dump net zero, the most insane economic policy ever pursued by Australian politicians.

This week they didn’t wait for Ley.

Pike, Small and Hamilton were out of the blocks quickly pointing out that Albo’s bill would perversely punish people who called out the hate preachers, not punish the hate preachers.

Hastie, Canavan and Price followed.

Ley followed them all.

But what is remarkable is the party as a whole seems to be lining up to vote down the latest incursion on Australian’s freedoms.

Is this a defining moment?

Pike was this week posting clips of British police officers arresting people for tweets, so insane are the laws in the Mother Country.

None of this is new but for some reason Pike felt emboldened.

I hope this means Liberals will start posting reals about Australians facing court under our existing flawed “hate speech” laws.

He didn’t have to look overseas.

Kirralie Smith called out biological males for playing soccer against women. After a protracted legal battle, she was ordered to pay $95,000 in damages for hurt feelings to the men who demand the right to play a contact sport against women.

One Nation, the Libertarians and Family First have been vocally supporting her.

There’s been silence from the Liberals.

The same goes for my court case which has dragged on for six years after two LGBTIQA+ drag queens sued me for saying they are dangerous role models for children, which they are.

I’ve had no support from the Coalition, no social media solidarity, no attempts to roll back anti-free speech laws.

Most Australians are blissfully unaware that freedom of speech is already dead in this country.

Yes, Albo’s new turbo charged “hate speech” laws will make it much worse because they carry jail terms.

Perhaps this was the jolt the Liberals needed to get into the debate.

Let’s hope the Liberals hold their nerve next week.

Let’s hope they then start working on rolling back the rest of our “hate speech” laws so freedom of speech can be restored.

The Bondi massacre response did not need “hate speech” laws which the left has used as an opportunity to further clamp down on the freedoms of mainstream Australians.

Totalitarians never waste a crisis.

As Alexandra Marshall pointed out on X, these new “hate speech” laws which elevate “hate speech” to a criminal offence with jail terms, did not suddenly appear after Bondi.

All that was needed was for politicians to find the courage to use existing laws which already criminalise speech that incites violence.

And if they were inadequate, the focus of next week’s Parliamentary sitting should have been on closing loopholes, not giving freedom of speech a card which says: “Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200”.

But for two years Labor let the hate preachers and the pro-Hamas protests run unchecked.

No one should be surprised Bondi happened. When Islamic preachers preach violence against Jews and protestors excuse rape, kidnapping and cold-blooded murder as “resistance”, none of us are safe.

It’s beyond stupid a law now sits before the Parliament to jail Australians who criticise Islam.

It’s almost like Australia’s radical left has a death wish.

But at least this time the Liberals are in the fight.

Lyle Shelton is National Director of Family First and the party’s lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council.

The radical left, of which Anthony Albanese is a creature, never miss a chance to advance.

Only leftists could turn a tragedy like Bondi, which is partly of their making, into an opportunity to silence dissent of their agenda.

The Prime Minister’s draft “hate speech” laws will only embolden Islamic extremists and punish those who challenge them.

By creating “a new offence for inciting hatred in order to intimidate or harass”, Islamic radicals will be able to use this as a shield to avoid legitimate discussion about their agenda.

Australia’s existing “hate speech” laws are deeply flawed as is evidenced by Binary spokeswoman Kirralie Smith being fined $95,000 for calling out biological males playing soccer in female competitions.

It is under “hate speech” laws that I have been pursued through the courts for almost six years for calling out LGBTIQA+ drag queens as dangerous role models for little children.

Muslims can cry “gas the Jews” on the steps of the Opera House with no consequences for inciting violence, while Kirralie cops a $95k fine for trying to protect girls’ and women’s sports. Make it make sense.

Making it easier for Islamic hate preachers to hide behind vague “incitement” or “harassment” clauses will only have a chilling effect on the sort of speech needed in a free society to call out extremism.

Fear of calling out radical Islam, two words the Prime Minister refuses to say, is what led to the Bondi massacre of Jews.

Making it even harder to call out radical Islam with powerful new laws that can be more easily turned on people making legitimate criticism of Islam will not make Australia safer.

It’s interesting but not surprising that radical LGBTIQA+ groups are also seeking to be dealt into the legislation so they too could avoid scrutiny and debate about their harmful child gender change conversion therapies.

The left never miss a chance.

The Liberal National Coalition must reject the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 in its entirety, a bill which also contains unnecessary further restrictions to Australia’s world-leading gun laws.

Liberal MP Henry Pike was spot on when he told The Australian:

“The proposed racial vilification offence risks protecting extremists and punishing those who challenge them. Radical Islamist hatred will shelter behind religious exemptions, while those of us who want to make a secular critique of extremist views, or cultural practices incompatible with Australian values, will have to run the risk of a criminal charge. Feeling intimidated is enough to trigger a crime carrying up to five years in jail. A Chinese-Australian may feel intimidated by a social post condemning Beijing’s naval incursions … A Palestinian-Australian could cite intimidation over criticism of Labor’s dodgy visa vetting processes. This is 18C on steroids. Backed by handcuffs and a five-year prison sentence.”

Overnight, courageous Queensland Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has said he will not support the bill.

Liberal leadership aspirant Andrew Hastie has flagged he may not support the bill because of concerns it will actually restrict freedom of religion.

Liberals Garth Hamilton, Queensland, and Ben Small, Western Australia, have also signalled they may break ranks with their leader Sussan Ley.

Tectonic plates are shifting in Australian politics.

It’s a good sign that so many Coalition MPs are prepared to break ranks on freedom of speech.

For too long they have been silent while people like me, Kirralie Smith, Sall Grover and others have been dragged through the courts on “hate speech” charges.

Free speech was throttled a long time ago in Australia. The bill to be rushed through Parliament next week will only shield Muslim extremists by allowing them to plead “harassment” in the face of mainstream criticism of Islam.

It won’t capture Muslim extremists, it shield them by putting a further legal chill on free speech.

The Prime Minister is trying to make the response to the Bondi massacre about guns, the Old Testament and “Islamophobia”.

He’s a master deflector.

One of his ministers, Anne Aly, wants to also include “homophobia” in the bill, as if that will stop acts of violence.

My court case is in large part about alleged “homophobia”, even though nothing can be found that shows I have an irrational fear of people with same-sex attraction.

The left never miss an opportunity.

Editor in Chief and podcast host Zanny Minton Beddoes claimed it was the first long-form interview of the Israeli Prime Minister. That is not true.

I have listened to at least two long-form interviews in the past year - one by Sky New’s Sharri Markson and one by Konstantin Kisin for the Trigonometry podcast.

Both of those interviewees received the same answers The Economist’s

team received. The suffering in Gaza could be ended tomorrow if Hamas would disarm.

In fact, there would have been no suffering these past two years had Hamas done that.

But Minton Beddoes and her deputy editor Edward Carr, both smart people and excellent interviewers, repeatedly asserted Israel was to blame for the 70,000 tragic deaths in Gaza as a result of the war which followed the October 7 atrocities.

Netanyahu repeated what he has continually repeated, for anyone paying attention: that Hamas used civilians as human shields, forced them at gunpoint to ignore IDF warnings to leave battle zones and had a massive tunnel network in which their fighters could hide but not civilians.

Minton Beddoes and Carr continually pointed out that Israel had lost international support and was now a pariah state.

Netanyahu conceded Israel, while winning on the battle field, had lost the propaganda war. Social media and organised elites in the West were overwhelmingly against it as it fought to protect its civilians from an enemy hell bent on destroying the Jewish state.

He calmly and convincingly repudiated The Economist’s charges of military overreach in Gaza. What was Israel supposed to do in the face of an enemy which indoctrinates its children to hate Jews and live for the destruction of its neighbour?

He reiterated that civilian-to-combatant deaths were the lowest ratio in modern urban warfare, something widely recognised as true despite Hamas forcing civilians to be used as human shields.

Netanyahu again made the case that Israel was fighting a war for civilisation because radical Islam will not stop at Jew killing. Minton Beddoes conceded she largely agreed with this point but still wanted to assert Israel had gone too far and that Netanyahu was “divisive”.

The more Netanyahu calmly answered all of her questions, the less plausible her clinging to her pre-conception looked.

She had no answer to Netanyahu expressing concern about Hamas continuing to steal aid. Sadly but unsurprisingly, Hamas has not disarmed and reports this week indicate it still has 20,000 fighters and is re-arming by taxing its people.

I like the Economist and appreciate the sharp writing of its journalists. Although, I’m always wary of its left wing bias which was on display in the podcast.

Unlike Australia’s Anthony Albanese who is shifty and obfuscates on the rare occasions he is put under journalistic scrutiny, Netanyahu was neither. He subjected himself to the toughest of questioning from some of the smartest in the legacy media without becoming uptight or testy.

I’m not saying that Israel’s battle tactics in the war in Gaza are beyond criticism. But I’ve grappled for the past two years to see what great error has been made.

If Australia was attacked like Israel was on October 7, I would want my government to neutralise the threat militarily. Most Australians would.

After two years of hard fighting and heavy losses by the brave young women and men of the IDF, it’s a miracle the remaining hostages were released. I thought they were as good as dead.

Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump and Netanyahu, the hostage release and the ceasefire were extraordinary achievements.

The big mistake is that Hamas has not been fully eradicated and they are re-arming.

Islamic terrorism is an existential threat to the West. Sadly this conflict matters to Australia because too many amongst our intellectual elites the ABC and amongst our one million strong Muslim population think Israel are the villains.

This moral inversion shows an inability to think critically in the face of blind ideology. That makes these people dangerous.

We saw this with the Bondi massacre committed by two home-grown Muslim terrorists no doubt feeling emboldened by the weekly cries on our streets to “globalise the Intifada”.

Journalism at its best will put leaders under scrutiny. Leaders at their best will subject themselves to it.

Sure Netanyahu will have put his “spin” on things. But good interviewers, like Minton Beddoes and Carr, see this and call it out.

In my opinion, Netanyahu answered the questions directly and with minimal obfuscation. That is rare.

I’m not saying Netanyahu is perfect. No political leader is. But he clearly does not deserve the pariah status Western elites and Muslim leaders bestow on him.

I’d love to see Anthony Albanese subject himself to something like this. But I think the glass jaw would shatter.

Christmas is one time of the year where it is okay to let nostalgia off the chain.

I like to think of my annual bout not as a soppy sentimentality but as constructive reflection.

After all, Socrates said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’

Thoughts harken back to childhood Christmases at my grandparents’ Queensland farm in a little district called Merlewood, eight miles from Murgon on the road to Gayndah.

I love to get lost in memories of my boy self descending the back landing steps of the farmhouse on stilts on those warm nights.

I’d look up at the stars and drink the smell of softwood vine scrub mingled with Rhodes grass.

I would imagine the night the angels appeared to shepherds in the Judean hills. I never saw angels, just stars shining brighter than they did in Toowoomba where I lived.

My grandparents’ brothers and sisters, their spouses, my uncles and aunties and assorted family friends would be singing Christmas carols and yarning, their voices spilling into the dark.

My grandfather’s siblings, all born before, during, or soon after the first world war, grew up on that farm which was carved from the scrub in the early 20th Century by my great-grandfather Henry William Shelton and his brother, John.

There were no bulldozers, just axes, human heft, and horse flesh.

Those were tough times. Children died after eating unripe grapes, men had fingers blown off by dynamite in well-sinking accidents and 21-year-old Will Shelton was killed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, his body never found.

Before he left for the Dardanelles, he planted the Moreton Bay fig by the house which provided shade for the family on Christmas Day.

It was from there we waited our turn at tennis on the rough ant bed court fenced with chicken wire.

My grandfather and his generation are all gone now but in the 1970s and 1980s I had a living link to people who spent their first years without cars and electricity.

They knew the meaning of Christmas, who the Christ child was and lived with certainties kids these days could only dream of.

Christmas Day was fun but chaotic. Way too many people gathered under the house sitting at trestle tables, dogs jostling our legs and the smell of a piggery built way too close wafting through the slats.

There were flies. It was hot but no one had heard of climate change, it was just the Queensland summer.

Apart from romanticising my childhood Christmases, I make a point each year of re-reading the Christmas story recorded in the Bible’s Gospel of Luke.

It’s the most comprehensive account.

Greg Sheridan in his latest book How Christians Can Succeed Today laments that Christmas movies ‘bathed in sentimentality … almost never mention the birth of Jesus’.

It’s why I read the Bible at Christmas. Luke tells Christmas the full story, not Clover Moore’s Christless version in Martin Place.

A medical doctor, he was not one of Jesus’ disciples, but he knew the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life and ministry.

His account relies heavily on Mark, a teenager who travelled with Jesus and knew his mother, Mary.

Luke tells the backstory of the Jewish priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, who after an angelic visitation, conceived John the Baptist.

The pregnant young Mary, whose fiancé, Joseph, had also been visited by an angel, visited Elizabeth. Her baby, John the Baptist, leapt in Elizabeth’s womb in the presence of the unborn Messiah.

John went on to fulfil the words of Isaiah, prophesied and written down 800 years earlier about a voice crying in the wilderness ‘prepare the way of the Lord’.

And that’s what John did before Herod cut off his head.

Luke reveals the fulfilment of what Isaiah was on about and what Handel later immortalised in the greatest music ever written: ‘unto us a child is born’.

The location – Bethlehem – was also foretold by Isaiah. You can’t make this stuff up, even though some people say it was.

Shepherds watching their flocks by night, seated on the ground, were the first to hear the good news with yet more angels appearing and proclaiming peace on Earth and goodwill towards all.

These were foreign concepts in the ancient world where life was brutish and short.

Goodwill towards others regardless of class or sex was foreign to pagan thinking.

It’s the holy night and the haunting carol by that name that gets me.

The birth of Jesus amongst cattle in a stable ushered in a quiet revolution which changed the world.

It’s why I still like to walk around in the dark on Christmas Eve.

‘Truly he taught us to love one another,’ angelic choristers intone through my Bose sound bar.

The West has made a good attempt, compared to what life was like BC (stands for Before Christ, before the woke mind virus erased Jesus in favour of BCE – Before the Contemporary Era).

But if we are honest we will admit we all struggle to live up to the Christmas ideal. Loving one another is hard.

I’ll never have another Christmas at the farm. It’s been sold because, like many family farms, it can no longer do what it did 120 years ago and support a family.

This Christmas Eve I’ll be at home at our small apartment in Sydney, a million miles from Murgon.

In Sydney, the city lights wash away the stars in the bright sky.

But I’ll stroll out on my little balcony and stare at the lights of Barangaroo in the far distance and meditate on the holy night Luke describes.

My grandfather’s generation did well but we’ve lost our way.

Last Christmas my wife and I sat down and watched How to Make Gravy – the Australian Christmas classic based on the song by Paul Kelly.

It’s a tale of family dysfunction but also redemption. Goodwill and peace win out. They learn to love one another.

What embodies more what Luke is trying to get across? Deep down we all yearn for what Christmas and the promise of the Christ child is about.

I’ve put How to Make Gravy on my Spotify playlist this Christmas and Luke of course remains on my reading list.

It’s important to celebrate the birth of Jesus each year and resolve to try and live up to what he taught us through his arrival that holy night.

Nostalgia doesn’t have to be an indulgence. It can help us live an examined life.

Merry Christmas.

This article was first published in Spectator Australia Flat White.

Because your party issued no fewer than 27 public statements over the past two years warning of the dangers posed by Australia’s Islamic leaders either celebrating atrocity or acquiescing to it by their silence.

We gave the details. We named the sheiks, imams, mosques and Islamic worship centres, one of which was attended by the younger Jihadi gunman.

We called for urgent investigations of those celebrating terrorism as recently as the “glory to the martyrs” rally in Paul Keating Park at Bankstown on October 7, this year.

We called for terrorist organisations helping to organise anti-Israel protests to be banned, like they are in even some Muslim nations.

These unheeded calls and warnings compound the grief and shock you and I feel over the murder of 15 innocent people, mainly Jewish Australians, by home-grown Islamic gunmen at Bondi Beach.

It goes without saying that not all Muslims are bad people or unAustralian. One brave Muslim, Ahmed al-Ahmed, momentarily wrestled a rifle off one of his brother Muslims, and he is forever an Australian hero.

Sadly, Palestinians in various on-line forums denounced him as a traitor to Islam for saving Jewish lives.

That’s because he was a traitor to fundamentalist Islam and we need more of them.

Also sadly, the silence of so-called “moderate” Muslim leaders in the face of two years sheiks and imams celebrating the Hamas atrocities has unmasked any pretence that Islam is a “religions of peace”.

Australia’s Muslim leadership have been either silent or celebrating when mobs chant Islamic death cult chants such as “globalise the intifada”, “gas the Jews”, or the genocidal “from the river to the sea”.

Our universities, much of the mainstream media (especially the ABC), Labor, the Greens and the Teals have waged a terrible and relentless campaign of defamation of Israel over its conduct of the war against Islamic terrorists who use their own people as human shields.

The intifada so many have called for week in and week out, at the Opera House on October 10, 2023 and in the disgraceful march across the Harbour Bridge in support of Hamas, made it all the way from the Jordan River to the Tasman Sea last Sunday.

No one should be surprised.

The brilliant Henry Ergas, writing in today’s The Australian, said ISIS and Australian Islamic fundamentalism is conducting a war against Australian Jews.

In a statement issued overnight praising the Bondi massacre, ISIS urged further attacks on “Jews and Christians”.

This is serious folks and the Albanese Government, in love with multiculturalism and Muslim votes, is asleep at the wheel.

They have blood on their hands and unless they find a moral compass there will be more blood in Australia and it won’t just be the blood of Jews.

The failed Albanese Government should resign in shame, en masse.

With one million Muslims now living in Australia, the overwhelming majority who just want to have a good life, it is time their leadership was called out for acquiescing to terrorism.

No more Sheikh Dadouns working as PR officers for the Imams. No more Wissam Haddads reading from Islamic texts which call for the killing of Jews. No more Hizb ut-Tahrir speakers at Lakemba Mosque.

If you are a religion of peace, start condemning these people. If you can’t, go practice your religion somewhere else.

So, what to do?

· Recognise that Islamic fundamentalism is at war with not just Jews, but with the Australian nation;

· Close the hate factories like the Bankstown Al Madina Dawah Centre;

· Proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir as a terrorist organisation and ban it;

· Ban the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt has);

· Ban Qatar Air from flying into Australia and require it to divest its stake in Virgin Australia (we have to get serious with the funders of global Jihad);

· Demand Australian Islamic leaders publicly denounce all forms of political violence;

· Demand Australian Islamic leaders publicly recognise Israel’s right to exist;

· Rescind our rewarding of Hamas by recognising a Palestinian state (solving the geopolitical mess that is Gaza, Judea and Samaria can wait until Palestinians truly disavow Islamic violence);

· Deport the ISIS brides who Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke lied about in regard to government help for their repatriation;

· Deport the 3000 Gazans let in by Labor; they have been indoctrinated to hate Jews and support political violence;

· Vigorously reassert the Judeo-Christian ideals of Australia’s founding so a high-trust, peaceful society can be rebuilt.

Until the leaders of Australia’s Muslims stop giving succour to radical Islam, more pilgrimages will be made to massacre sites on Australian soil.