Spanking for adults and deadly force for violent home invaders?
A minority Conservative party is pushing for the introduction of corporal punishment and the Castle Act ahead of the Queensland election.
However, Katter’s Australian Party has rejected a hardline stance on crime after the opposition highlighted a candidate’s past.
With youth crime a major problem ahead of Saturday’s election, the Katter party’s Ben Campbell offered his solution to the media on Monday.
The candidate from Barron River, in far north Queensland, backed the Conservative party’s call for corporal punishment, promoting caning for both children and adults.
The former Navy veteran said violent home invasions and car theft would justify a beating.
‘Spanking is a punishment used in Singapore; Let’s look at their crime rate,” he told reporters in Cairns.
KAP candidate Ben Campbell believes violent home invasions and car thefts justify a beating
‘Their crime rate is quite low, so they are obviously doing something right.
“Adults should be spanked too.”
Campbell also backed the Katter party’s push for Castle Law: a resident’s right to defend their property with deadly force.
‘Absolutely. “If they are there to hurt you, they deserve it,” he said.
The Katter party presented a petition with more than 40,000 signatures in June calling for the introduction of the Castle Law.
However, his Castles Bill was shelved after it was not presented for debate in the final week of parliament sitting last month.
“It is vital to give people in their homes the ability to fight and defend themselves against criminals,” Mr Campbell said.
Abortion has also been a hot topic after party leader Robbie Katter pledged to bring a private members’ bill to parliament in the hope of changing the legislation.
Abortion was decriminalized in Queensland in 2018.
‘We’re not saying you can’t have an abortion. “That is not our policy,” Mr. Campbell said.
With youth crime a major problem ahead of Saturday’s election, the Katter party’s Ben Campbell offered his solution to the media on Monday. In the photo: A scourge in Banda Aceh, Indonesia
“What we’re saying is… if an abortion fails and the baby comes out alive, that baby should receive medical care, as I’m sure any of you would expect to receive.”
The Katter party remained firm in its hardline stance during the election campaign, but on Monday the opposition attempted to change the situation.
Liberal National Party MP Jarrod Bleijie has taken aim at Michael Pugh after the party’s Katter candidate for Mundingburra in Townsville admitted his criminal past by declaring he would contest the seat in June.
He was charged with burglary and robbery in the early 2000s.
Bleijie read to the media on Monday summaries of a newspaper article about the Mundingburra candidate’s criminal record, which included a home invasion.
“It tells of a Katter Australian Party candidate who once used a sheathed bayonet in a home invasion while trying to collect a drug debt,” Mr Bleijie said.
“In the report, Crown prosecutor David Jones said Mr Pugh had shouted ‘don’t go to the police, you dogs, or I’ll come back and beat you up’.”
“It is unprecedented for the Katter party to run a candidate who invaded a home with a bayonet to collect a drug debt.”
Pugh said in June that he had pleaded guilty to home invasion and robbery with violence in the early 2000s, when he was in his early 20s.
He said he had always planned to tell voters before the election and that KAP knew of his record before he was chosen as a candidate.
