The One Nation candidate for the seat of Hunter has brushed off concerns about a series of videos from his past saying they were jokes or taken out of context.
Stuart Bonds ran for One Nation as the 2019 election in the New South Wales seat of Hunter and his campaign hit rough seas when a series of comments he’d made in the past came to light.
Bonds denied he was homophobic or a misogynist when Channel Nine approached him over a video that had been deleted from a YouTube channel run by his wife, Finnish tattoo model Sini Ariell.
In the video he said, “The only thing worse than a gay person with power is a woman”.
Before adding, “I don’t have a woman boss and I don’t have a gay boss, and there’s a reason for that.”
Previously he had made videos questioning if the Port Arthur Massacre occurred, the circumstances around the death of Osama Bin Laden and questioned if the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy.
Bonds later had a falling out with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and ran as an independent at the 2022 election, but they’ve now made up and he’s back representing One Nation.
Appearing on the Sky News program Outsiders on Sunday morning, Bonds explained away his previous controversial statements labelling them as jokes, or comments that were taken out of context. Bonds denied he’s a conspiracist.
“When you take things out of context. When you sit there and talk to a camera and put your points of view across, and then you take tiny little snippets and jam then into a hit piece and then put out on the news.” Bonds said to the suggestion he sounds like he’s into conspiracies.
‘Did you not say those things?” journalist Caroline Marcus asked.
“You’ve got to get in context – right.” Bonds said, “You’ve got to get it all in a flowing conversation.” He said the comments previously attributed to him were media “hit pieces”.
Bonds said the comment about gay people and women was a joke, and people could work out he didn’t have a problem with women because he’d joined a political party run by a woman.
Bonds said he’d like to see Australia dramatically reduce exports of coal and power new coal power stations across the country, which he believes would lead to a growth of Australian based manufacturing.
The seat of Hunter has been held by Labor since 1910 and is one of original 65 seats created a federation. Its currently represented by Daniel Repacholi, who in 2022 succeeded Labor minister Joel Fitzgibbon who was first elected in 1996. Previously the seat was held by his father Eric Fitzgibbon.
