Do we like Malcolm Roberts?
Our score: 1 out of 10. trans protections, with little to balance it.
Roberts won a Queensland Senate seat for One Nation in 2016, and his early story is a citizenship tangle. He tweeted in October 2016 that he had never held any citizenship other than Australian. In 2017 SBS reported documents showing a 1974 form on which a 19-year-old Roberts described himself as a British citizen. He told Sky News he had “taken all steps that I reasonably believe necessary”, and said the British High Commission only confirmed his renunciation in December, after he nominated.
The citizenship mess had a sequel. A blogger, Tony Magrathea, sued him under the Common Informers Act over a Section 44 breach, and told Crikey in 2019 that he won $6000 plus court costs. Crikey carried no comment from Roberts. It is a strange look for a man who built his name demanding that everyone else show their evidence.
On the planet, the record is plain. AAP FactCheck rated false his claim that there is “no empirical evidence” directly linking CO2 to climate change, and ANU’s Nerilie Abram called it “plain wrong”. His votes match: They Vote For You has him consistently against net zero by 2050, the Paris Agreement and protecting the Great Barrier Reef, and consistently for Adani’s coal mine.
On people, it’s no better. In 2019 he was one of three senators who voted against a Transgender Awareness Week motion; Amnesty called the votes “transphobic”. They Vote For You has him consistently against trans rights, legal protections for LGBTI people and gender-affirming care for trans young people. In 2018 he said in a Facebook Live video that family courts push men towards violence, and the Law Council called it “irresponsible and plain stupid”.
Then there is July 2026. AAP reported that on The Alex Jones Show in 2024 he praised Jones, that he had suggested the Bondi Hanukkah attack was a “false flag”, and that he shared a 2024 mural post accused of repeating an anti-Semitic claim about Jews. A 2025 video also showed him calling COVID deaths “staged”. Roberts wrote in The Spectator that the Bondi attack was “Of course not” a false flag, and called the coverage dishonest.
Even his own side keeps flinching. Barnaby Joyce said he didn’t concur with the COVID view but wouldn’t throw Roberts under a bus. Allegra Spender and Angus Taylor both said Hanson should deal with it. For a family page that wants no nasty surprises, this is the surprise.