Labor Northern Territory Senate candidate Wayne Kurnoth is expected to stand aside this morning after it was revealed by The Australian that he shared an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that claims the world is being run by a secret society of Jewish shape-shifting lizards.
Labor sources told The Australian last night that Mr Kurnoth acknowledges that what he did was unacceptable.
After being counselled by senior Labor figures, he said he didn’t want to be a distraction to the party and would stand down.
His name will remain at the No 2 spot on Labor’s NT Senate ticket because ballot papers have already been printed.
Mr Kurnoth shared a video of British lecturer David Icke on his Facebook page in December 2015.
In the video, Mr Icke preaches his anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that an inter-dimensional race of giant Jewish lizards has hijacked the Earth and is stopping humanity from realising its true potential.
He claims American presidents, royalty and the Rothschild family are descendants of these reptiles.
Labor successfully campaigned to ban Mr Icke from coming to Australia earlier this year.
Mr Kurnoth also shared an image in October 2016, made by a fake news website, that spouts Mr Icke’s conspiracy that “Rothschild Zionists’’ secretly run the world by controlling the media, Hollywood, governments and global finance.
The Labor candidate was forced to apologise on Friday for posting an Islamic State-inspired image online depicting Malcolm Turnbull severing the head of ABC journalist Emma Alberici. His Facebook page was deleted that afternoon.
When asked about Mr Kurnoth on Friday, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described him as “incredibly stupid” but refused to disendorse him as a Labor candidate.
Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, said it was highly alarming that a Labor candidate has shared the “virulent anti-Jewish rantings” of Mr Icke.
According to the commission, Mr Icke believes Jewish people bankrolled Adolf Hitler, caused the 2008 global financial crisis and staged the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, and that far-right groups are fronts for Jewish people.
“Words of hate and incitement matter, and it’s deeply troubling that a candidate running for elected office has trafficked in longstanding anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,’’ Dr Abramovich said.
He called on Mr Kurnoth to apologise and publicly dissociate himself from the anti-Semitic posts.
“Such bigoted slurs and scapegoating … have no place in Australian politics,’’ he said.