While Gina Rinehart may have been the best-known Australian at Donald Trump’s victory party in Florida, she shared a table with another devoted fan of the new president in Australia.
Outspoken former Liberal Vice President Teena McQueen was also seen at the soirée at the Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump’s Florida home, sitting at a table with billionaire mining magnate Rinehart and right-wing UK MP Nigel Farage. .
McQueen revealed on the ABC quiz show in 2019 how he met the future president of the United States.
He spoke out to defend Trump after Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi called him a racist and a “flagbearer of sexism” live on the ABC show.
Ms McQueen responded that she was probably the only member of the panel who had spent time with him.
“You don’t have to spend time with Trump to know what he stands for, be frank,” Senator Faruqi interrupted, earning applause from a sympathetic audience.
However, Mrs. McQueen continued undaunted.
“In 2006, I was a companion to the Miss Australia contestant in the Miss Universe pageant when Trump was still running it,” she said.
Former Liberal Party federal vice president Teena McQueen (pictured left with Gina Rinehart center and Nigel Farage right) was photographed at Trump’s victory party in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
‘So, he was there all the time during the week and I mean I had a lot of time to talk to him about politics.
“He always said he intended to, you know, run for president.
‘He was none of those things. It wasn’t racist, or sexist, or any of those things.
American academic, author and political activist Roxane Gay was not convinced.
“Just because you haven’t had an experience with him doesn’t mean he hasn’t done these terrible things,” she said.
“I mean, there’s audio of him talking about grabbing pussy.”
After McQueen told a right-wing conference in 2022 that she was glad to see “left-wing” Liberal MPs lose their seats in the last federal election, she was barred from re-election to the party’s federal executive in June 2023.
Ms. MsQueen revealed on a 2019 episode of ABC’s Q&A that she met Trump when she was a beauty queen’s companion.
Since losing her Liberal Party job, Ms McQueen has been an irregular contributor to Sky News’ group of conservative think tanks.
According to a source who knows both women, Ms. McQueen and Ms. Rinehart are “very, very close.”
The only other Australian believed to be at Trump’s party is Brisbane-based Andrew Cooper, co-founder of CPAC in Australia.
McQueen told Nine newspapers the atmosphere at Trump’s party on Wednesday was “electric”
“Incredible, the best night of my life,” he said.
She joked that if Trump won the mining state of Virginia, it would be because she and Rinehart, CEO of iron ore giant Hancock Prospecting, went to a rally in Salem.
As it turned out, Trump didn’t win the traditionally Democratic state, but that was of little consequence as he scored a resounding electoral college victory in Wednesday’s election.
