Sydney MP Craig Kelly’s job is to represent Hughes but he’s pushing manic fringe craziness instead

The page is mostly filled with manic fringe craziness. Just last week he said on Facebook that Marxists engaged in a highly co-ordinated “false flag” operation on the Capitol and relied on a later retracted story in notorious Trumpist rag The Washington Times. He has touted ivermectin as more effective than all the COVID vaccines and for months and months boosted hydroxychloroquine. I asked Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity at the Kirby Institute, to talk me through Kelly’s claims. She said neither of Kelly’s preferred drugs had the appropriate randomised controlled clinical trials to support his assertions. And did I know that in some cases hydroxychloroquine could make the illness worse?

This is a man saved from preselection challenge by prime ministerial intervention. Worse than that, his colleagues in the Liberal Party have simped out on critiquing him. Scott Morrison even said, when asked last Friday if he would “condemn conspiracy theories being promoted by members of your own government” replied “You know, Australia is a free country. There’s such a thing as freedom of speech in this country and that will continue.”

It is such a shame we don’t have a code of conduct for parliamentarians, or an Australian Federal Integrity Commission, which perhaps could punish behaviour like this and send those responsible to Siberia (looking forward to the debate in parliament this year).

That’s precisely what some of the constituents of the seat of Hughes are trying to do now. Linda Seymour has lived in Hughes for 20 years. Now she and a bunch of others are working together to bring about the enduring miracle Cathy McGowan pulled off in Indi, Zali Steggall wrought in Warringah.

“I cannot support this man. There are lots of Liberal voters who are disgusted,” says Seymour, an architectural consultant and part of the We Are Hughes grassroots movement, who is frustrated Kelly is permitted to enter schools and deny climate change when the science is settled.

Have they picked a candidate yet, especially since the election could be far sooner than later? Not yet.

“We have someone with extreme views representing us,” says Louise D’Arcens, another resident of Hughes and a professor of medieval literature at Macquarie University. She’s all over extreme views and points out contemporary extremists are attracted to the Middle Ages, as a period of time representing White Christian conservative values.

“My hunch is that people here don’t realise they are voting for an extremist.” She also wants to tell outsiders Hughes is more than Kelly country.

Is it possible to persuade local Liberals to show some spine and back in a locally chosen candidate? Can a decent Labor candidate do something to stop Kelly? Chris Wallace, associate professor at the University of Canberra and author of How to Win an Election, says a Labor candidate would have to be compelling (and also resist the dullness of Labor’s current iteration).

“More likely is an ‘independent’ insurgency of the kind that dislodged Abbott from Warringah. An attractive centrist candidate suited to Hughes’ distinct demographic could dislodge enough disaffected Liberal voters to, in conjunction with a good preference deal, beat Kelly,” she says.

Zali Steggall, who heroically unseated climate sceptic and former prime minister Tony Abbott from the seat of Warringah, has some advice: “I would encourage [voters in Hughes] to think about the issues that matter to them and how it is best for those views to be represented in Parliament.” She reminds voters their member reflects on the electorate and the people who vote him in.

“The time of just blindly following parties should be over. MPs have a duty to their electorates and put those views and needs first.”

University of Newcastle researcher Kurt Sengul says Kelly’s posts are typical of far-right actors: conspiratorial, anti-science, anti-expert, evidence-free rhetoric.

“That’s typical of what we see on the far right,” says Sengul.

But instead of taking Kelly to task, the Prime Minister gives him a cosy rub between the ears. Sengul observes that this isn’t some kooky minor party. It is the ruling party.

“If Scott Morrison doesn’t send a message, it reveals Kelly and his views have a home in the Liberal Party.”

Just as those views became part of the Republican Party.

Jenna Price is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and a regular columnist.