Do we like Gerard Rennick?
Our score: 2 out of 10. Years of vaccine-scepticism posts and a voting record against trans, LGBTIQ+ and climate measures, with only a thin run of good to set against it.
Rennick was a Queensland LNP senator who lost his spot on the party's Senate ticket in July 2024. He said his appeal, which alleged "gross irregularities" in the process, was rejected, and in August 2024 he quit to start his own party. He said he'd rather talk about important issues than "just play tiddlywinks", and he promised to stir the pot from the crossbench.
The platform he left on was cost of living. He wanted inquiries into lifting the tax-free threshold to $40,000, a public bank funded by quantitative easing, and paying childcare subsidies straight to families. He also wanted to scrap the defined benefits scheme for retired public servants. Plenty of that is ordinary populist fare, and it's the bit of his pitch that has nothing to do with the harm test.
The stoush he's best known for is vaccines. In August 2021 Facebook marked his posts about PCR testing as "false information", and Health Minister Greg Hunt told the community to "stick with the facts". Crikey's 2023 freedom-of-information story showed health regulator staff tracking his posts, while he said "I am not an anti-vaxxer". The regulator says it offered him briefings that he disputes taking up.
On the harm test, his votes are the record. They Vote For You has him consistently voting against trans young people having access to gender-affirming healthcare and almost always against transgender rights and protections. It also has him almost always voting against more legal protections for LGBTI people. In February 2025 he voted against the hate speech bill and called it a deceptive "political stunt". That's his call to make, but it is on the wrong side of this page's line.
The planet record is the same story. He consistently voted against a carbon price, net zero by 2050, the Paris Agreement and limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. He consistently voted for more investment in coal and against investment in renewable energy. He also voted against a Royal Commission into Robodebt and against the Uluru Statement being implemented in full.
After leaving the LNP he took questions from the public in a Reddit AMA in September 2024. Crikey reported that he copped savage down-voting and hostile questioning about COVID and climate. We couldn't confirm any news about him from the last few months, so nothing new on him lately.