A newly announced One Nation candidate has been scolded by Pauline Hanson for speaking Japanese at his official unveiling, AAP reports.
Former NSW trade commissioner Mike Newman will stand as the party’s lead candidate and run in the traditionally Labor-voting seat of Cessnock in the Hunter Valley.
Newman admitted he had not lived in the state for 25 years but refused to answer questions about moving to the seat he will contest.
During a press conference in Singleton, Newman responded in Japanese to a question from a foreign media outlet before being told off by his boss. Hanson told her candidate:
double quotation mark“I think everyone else might appreciate [English].
Mr Newman continued to answer the question on how a One Nation government would support Asian investment in Japanese before translating into English.
Despite the One Nation leader’s calls for a “monoculture” and her infamous 1996 speech in parliament where she spoke of the danger of being “swamped by Asians”, the candidate shut down suggestions his party had a culture of racism. Newman told News24 separately:
double quotation markMy wife’s Japanese, so if I thought for even a fleeting second that [One Nation] were racist … All my business partners are Indians who are absolutely patriotic Aussies, I don’t really see that.
