Former Federal Member for Hughes, Craig Kelly. Photo: Screenshot.
Former Federal Liberal, independent, and United Australia Party (UAP) member Craig Kelly has announced he has joined Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, effective immediately.
The former member for Hughes in Sydney’s southern suburbs announced his move on Twitter/X on 28 February, just hours after the Daily Telegraph’s James Morrow broke the story.
“It’s game on,” Mr Kelly’s Twitter/X post reads. “I’ve officially joined Pauline Hanson One Nation to provide real opposition to the Labor/Liberal cartel.
“If you follow the science and understand the nonsense of net zero and if you are concerned how extreme migration is pushing up rents & mortgages and fundamentally changing the Australian way of life for the worse – come and join the fight.”
The move seems to be a continuation of Mr Kelly’s drift towards the extreme right edge of Australian politics.
He has vocally supported conspiracy theories about the origins and effects of COVID-19 and surrounding the alleged damage caused by vaccines and vaccine mandates that helped to control the spread of the disease, and has frequently addressed national anti-vaccine rallies.
He has also denied the existence of man-made climate change, and has objected to and denied the science surrounding efforts to reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero.
Mr Kelly was elected to the House of Representatives for Hughes in 2010, and was re-elected in 2013, 2016 and 2019, but lost his seat in 2022. He served as a member of the Liberal Party from 2010 to 2021, as an independent from February to August 2021 while continuing to support the Morrison Coalition Government on confidence and supply, before joining the UAP in August 2021.
After being defeated in Hughes in the May 2022 general election by Liberal candidate Jenny Ware, Mr Kelly became the National Director of UAP, and has now joined One Nation as its Federal Campaign Director.
In 2023 Mr Kelly registered as an independent Legislative Assembly candidate for the NSW state election, but was not elected.
Original Article published by Andrew McLaughlin on Riotact.
