Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by saying that this is not my first speech. It is, however, my first day, and it's going really well and just gets better. A newspaper article was published today with the headline 'New Liberal Senator Jim Molan posts inflammatory anti-Muslim videos'. It was in the Sydney Morning Herald. Adam Gartrell published it at about 1.37 pm today. This article infers a sequence of events which is totally and absolutely wrong. It is duplicitous. It infers I became a senator and immediately started posting racist, anti-Muslim videos. That's certainly what the headline says. It's not true. What is being referred to here occurred roughly a year ago. I have not used Facebook for as long as I can remember.

Today, when the article came out, I couldn't remember the videos themselves, but, when I saw them, I was reminded of the nature of them, and the nature of them is about violence and antisocial behaviour. I did not see them and I believe they are not anti-Islam or about racism. I say that because I am not a racist and I am not anti-Islamic as I am accused in this article. Gratuitous violence, antisocial behaviour and rioting are what I am against—not race, not Islam. Supposedly these videos were false, I'm told, because someone in the trail of activities after the videos said that they were false. To me they look to this day very real. I would invite all senators who are interested to look at these videos and judge for themselves whether in fact they have been staged, whether in fact they are faked.

I've lived and worked most effectively in foreign countries, and you cannot do that if you are racist. I spent three years in Papua New Guinea. East Timor I've visited at least 20 times, spending long times there. I lived in Indonesia for five years. In the Solomon Islands I commanded the evacuation force from the Solomon Islands. I spent one year in Iraq when I ran the war in Iraq. I fought for Muslims in Iraq, and many Iraqis were alive when I left because of the actions that I took—not racist, not anti-Islam. Linking me to Britain First is absolutely absurd.

President Trump brought Britain First to our attention well after I shared those two antisocial, violent videos. Supposedly, according to this article, I commented somewhere that this situation is unbelievable. I find violence such as this, even though I'm a soldier and I have lived and worked in a violent world, totally unbelievable. Supposedly I'm asked to apologise for being antiviolent? Bizarre.

A tweet appeared today under the name of 'McKim' saying I was a blatant racist, saying that I bragged about the cruelty of offshore detention, saying that I revel in trampling rights and freedoms. These allegations are totally untrue and should be withdrawn.

I've spent all my life working cross-culturally across races and across religions. I've had many Muslim friends during periods of incredibly intense conflict, periods of incredibly intense tension for me and my Muslim friends over many years in many places, and I have been effective. I and others have done more for the most basic human right that exists, and that is the right to be alive—a right which was not granted, in particular, to 1,200 refugees who drowned at sea. As I said before, many people were alive in Iraq when I left because of my actions, and I suspect that I have made a greater contribution to the human rights of many people—particularly the basic human right of being alive—than many of those that criticise me. Thank you.