United Australia senator Ralph Babet has declared he will be ignoring an order to undergo sensitivity training from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.
The parliament standards body reprimanded the United Australia party’s sole senator over online comments he made in 2024 which included racist and homophobic slurs. The senator as censured by parliament at the time.
The standards body took the rare step of published a report on the senator’s refusal to undertake the required training. Usual reports of poor behaviour are kept under wraps, and the law only allows the findings to be made public if a parliamentarian refused to comply with the commission’s directions.
““The panel considered Senator Babet’s posts to be offensive, disrespectful and harmful to individuals who are commonwealth parliamentary workplace participants,” the panel’s findings said. They shared that he had refused to attend the required December 2025 training session.
It’s the first public finding by the commission since it was established in 2024.
Senator Babet told The Guardian the findings were “dumb”, and that he would not take part in the “ridiculous” sensitivity training it sanctioned him to undertake. He went on to say he did not believe “out of control” bureaucrats should be allowed to police his comments outside the chamber, labelling the body as “very dangerous”.
Last year the Victorian senator spoke out about the fledgling Swan Pride Festival in Western Australia accusing organisers of “sexualising children” and labeling the City of Swan councilors “truly twisted individuals”.
Senator Babet began his six-year term in the senate after being elected at the 2022 election. He was the party’s only candidate to be elected despite billionaire Clive Palmer spending over $100million on advertising across the country. Prior to entering parliament Senator Babet was a real estate agent.
The senator recently launched a petition to hold a national referendum to have a right to free speech added to the Australian Constitution.
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