The newly named Austin ‘Aussie’ Trump hopes his fellow independent MPs will follow his lead and change their names too. He’s hoping Louise Kingston will become Louise Firearms and Sophias Moermond will adopt Sophia Freedom.
Trump, who was previously known as Ben Dawkins, announced this week that his name would appear on the ballot box as Austin ‘Aussie’ Trump after he officially changed his name with the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
During a live stream on social media platform X conducted by right-wing media organisation Freedom Media Trump said he’s hoping other MPs would follow his lead to draw attention to key issues.
During the online chat Trump defended his performance in the parliament to date saying he’d done his best to participate in debates around key issues but argued as an independent there was little opportunity to set the agenda.
He said his name change stunt was to draw attention to dominance the Labor party has in the parliament, where it has a super-majority across both houses.
During the conversation Trump said hoped other independent MPs would follow his lead and change their names too.
“I reckon Louise Kingston should change her name to something to do with the guns, like Louise Firearm, or something like that.
“Sophia Moermond should change her surname to Freedom.” Trump said, later saying it was only a light-hearted suggestion.
The MP said that since he announced he adopted the name of the US President he’s been doing interviews with media outlets around the world, and it might give him a new type of leverage in the upcoming election.
Trump said if re-elected his top priority would be to repeal the changes to the Births, Deaths and Marriages act that allowed people to change their gender on official documents more easily, calling for investigations into covid vaccinations, rejecting changes to the state’s firearms laws, and lobbying the federal government to reverse its decision to close down the live sheep export trade.
The Western Australian Trump also said he’d been adopting the US President’s mantra of “drill, baby, drill” to encourage more oil and gas mining to bring down energy prices.
“I’m speechless,” Premier Roger Cook said after hearing of the MPs name change gambit, while WA Liberal Party Leader Libby Mettam called it “very juvenile”.
Trump, Moermond and Kingston had all appeared together or a website promoting independent candidates. Alongside half a dozen largely unknown names who are also hoping to run as independents, the collectively encouraged people to consider making a vote outside of the major parties.
In recent days many of the profiles have vanished and only Trump and Moermond remain on the site.
OUTinPerth has reached out to both Kingston and Moermond to see if they’d be up for a name change too.
