Update : Huh. The hullabaloo over Peter Watson’s fitness as the ALP candidate for the seat of Southern Downs in next month’s Queensland state election would appear to derive from comments he made on homosexuality.
These comments appeared on my blog on March 26, 2009.
The ah, funny thing is, Peter’s homophobia is only one of a number of other rather, um, controversial views he has expressed in the last few years, notably a belief in ZOG and White supremacy.
On February 27, 2011 on the VNN forum Peter (“V.K.”) wrote: “When I was at high school (I was expelled March last year), there were different kinds of males. There was the jock, emo, nerd and average. Because I am not all there in the head I never fitted in at school. I was the one who was bullied by the jocks, thought of as an idiot by the nerds, hated as a Nazi by the emos and considered strange by the average males.” http://www.vnnforum . com/showthread.php?t=124231&page=2 His postings also claim (March, 2011) that he was fined $500 for public nuisance after abusing some local Aborigines and that his racist views were well-known among the local population. Of his political history he writes: “The Stalinist League ceased to exist in Septemb[e]r 2009. I joined Australia First in April 2006 but was expelled in July 2006. I joined the Australia First Party in December 2009 and left in April 2011 over a disagreement with the Queensland Secretary and the Party’s state officials. All of that is public knowledge. Every single person in the nationalist movement knows of my history. I have been on the internet since April 2006.” http://www.vnnforum . com/showthread.php?t=125214
All very sad and unpleasant really…
*Oh, and Dr Cam re-publishes some of his correspondence with Peter here.
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Strewth.
Queensland Labor eh?
I had no idea ’til today, but apparently late last year cheeky Interwebs monkey Peter Watson was appointed Labor’s candidate for the seat of Southern Downs ahead of next month’s state election. And today, poor old very young Peter has been purged from the party of labour, supposedly on account of some rather dubious postings on the ah, Internets. AAP:
Queensland Labor candidate resigns
February 20, 2012A YOUNG Labor candidate has stepped down for allegedly posting offensive remarks linking homosexuality with pedophilia.
Peter Watson, 19, resigned as candidate for the rural seat of Southern Downs, a statement from Labor’s state secretary Anthony Chisholm said [tonight].
Mr Chisholm’s statement says he accepts Mr Watson’s resignation but failed to explain the allegations against him…
The ABC also can has drama.
FTR, Peter landed on the political map way back in November 2007, when as the President, Secretary, Treasurer and likely sole (human) member of the ‘Stalinist League of Australia’ his views on the 2007 federal election were canvassed by Comrade Cam Smith for Crikey, viz: “Peter Watson, the 15 year old founder and president of the Stalinist League of Australia, says that the SLA are advocating a vote for the SLA first, the Socialist Alliance second, and the International Nerd-Gothic conspiracy last. The International Nerd-Goths are controlled by his science teacher and are responsible for, amongst other things, killing Stalin and having Peter banned from the library at his school. The SLA has had limited success in student council elections and doesn’t appear to be running any candidates federally.”
A schoolboy prank which was rather amusing at the time (and even earned Peter a place on Joe Hildebrand’s blogroll), between then (to be precise: June 2007) and now Peter has spammed my blog many hundreds of times, sometimes using his real name but just as often employing a pseudonym. A few of his comments are included in the Courier Mail account of the scandal.
Otherwise, Peter’s political evolution has been from Stalin to Hitler, and his precocious political ambitions expressed on a range of different online forums. Following the switch from extolling the virtues of one Great Man of History to the Other, Peter became a virtual presence on Stormfront and the even coarser neo-Nazi forum Vanguard News Network (Peter joined in May 2009 as “V.K.”). Indeed, Peter is relatively well-known among local nutzis, who are often as confused by him as the ALP apparently came to be. On VNN on May 16 last year, local neo-Nazi HSN Nick wrote:
Seriously , who gives a shit what someone has written on the net ? P will get to know what its all about when he starts meeting folk in the real world . He gave me the shits to begin with , but with the right influence I think he will grow up alot . remember he’s only a young fella , give a him a few years and he’ll probablly be more to most folks on here’s liking .
Nick will no doubt be partying hard at the Hammered Festival in Brisbane in April… but will the ex-Labor candidate from Warwick be joining him?
Finally, Michael McKenna in The Australian writes:
Confessed White Australia nationalist drops bid for ALP seat
February 21, 2012A QUEENSLAND Labor candidate and party official has been forced to quit the election campaign over his support for white supremacists.
Teenage Labor candidate Peter Watson, who was contesting the seat of Southern Downs held by former opposition leader Lawrence Springborg, was last night unrepentant about his views that were discovered on the “White Law Towers” blog.
Mr Watson, 19, who is a traffic controller on the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane, is the secretary of the Warwick branch of the ALP.
He told The Australian last night that he has never hidden his racial-based views about Australia. “I don’t hide anything, I am proud of what I believe in,” he said.
“I regard myself as a white nationalist, not a supremacist, and that 40 years of multiculturalism has destroyed this country.
“My views were the same as the trade union movement in the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, particularly with the White Australia policy.”
Labor insiders last night questioned how Mr Watson was not vetted by the party organisation before his uncontested endorsement to run as a candidate last December.
Mr Watson said he had not widely shared his views within the party but a local newspaper had alleged he wrote the blog.
“I didn’t create the website, I just made some comments on it in the past few years . . . supportive of white nationalism,” he said…
In reality, Whitelaw Towers is authored by Jim Perren (Toowoomba) and Peter Campbell (Sydney, as ‘Victor Whitelaw’).
mmm. mmmmmmph. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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Oh dearie me.
After Joseph Adams in NSW and any number of wingnuts past and present (Wilson Tuckey is one of quite a collection who actually made it to the leather seats) this is no surprise.
Australia First’s founder Graeme Campbell was Labor Member for Kalgoorlie for 18 years (which incidentally gave him taxpayer-funded superannuation and a gold pass).
I expect to see you standing for the Liberal party in an outer-suburban seat some time soon @ndy.
Could someone please tell journos pedophilia is spelt paedophilia in Australia.
A racist, homophobic traffic controller for Labor? Sadly, not surprised!
@dj: Never Again!
@Rob: Let the word spread from here.
So lets get some stats on homosexuals being paedophilia prone. Information is what we need, not emotion. Personally, my son experienced being acosted at a swimming pool by such a person.
*sigh*
On March 26, 2009, Peter Watson wrote:
So, according to the former Labor candidate for Southern Downs, “most paedophiles are homosexual”.
In conventional discourse, paedophilia is understood as being a sexual attraction by adults towards children. This attraction may be towards boys or girls or both. More relevant is the apparent fact that the majority of paedophiles are men, not women. That your son was accosted by a person at a swimming pool does not add much to this picture.
Here is the real story, and what this is really about: on February 23rd civil unions will be legalized in qld and the LNP knows that there parties mps have a strong track record on homophobic comments and on thursday they are likely to state [homophobic] comments in realtion to same-sex realtionships, so the LNP and the couriermail are getting in first to try and make it seem that the ALP are just as homophobic as the LNP, see this is mainly about perception to heterosexual people who are swinging voters. The truth is that some LNP mp’s have publicly stated homophobic comments like Peter Watson, but you don’t hear about those comments in the couriermail.
I spent all bloody afternoon handing out How To Vote cards for @ndy at Chirnside Park K-Mart and now he bloody tells us he’s not even running? Well you can all get stuffed. I’m joining Family First.
Is Peter Watson suffering from a mental illness?