Ralph ‘Deej’ Babet (the ‘Deej’, like many others, has yet to be accounted for) is the new senator for Victoria.
Attempts Monday to ask him about the general philosophy he will bring to the Senate or an opinion on certain points of contention, such as the country’s energy future, were rejected, and his Twitter and Facebook accounts are no longer accessible.
But what information is available suggests that for the Narre Warren broker, who is half of Babet Brothers (formerly Nude Fit Nutrition Pty Ltd), it will be anything but political.
Social media posts show the incoming senator strongly believes in a conspiracy theory that puts the World Economic Forum at the center of a plot that COVID-19 created and spread to dismantle capitalism and establish a left-wing world government.
“Bend your knees, belch!” he endorsed a photo of the logo of the WEF, the international NGO viewed with great suspicion by hardcore conservatives.
Mr. Babet has declared WEF founder Klaus Schwab the real winner of the May 21 elections after Election Day.
An appreciation for heterodox economics could make him more loyal to the UAP platform than the party’s last class of state and federal MPs, who defected in months.
(Clive Palmer’s vehicle also brought Jacqui Lambie into public life and, in this House, was able to exert the balance of power in a progressive Senate.)
Babet’s most outspoken views appear to have been formed in opposition to lockdowns, helping him win a picket spot on the UAP ticket in a state where the party believed a lengthy state lockdown made its pitch to voters the strongest.
“The Labor-Liberal coalition must be held accountable,” he said before the election. “The damage done will reverberate for generations.”
Contrary to the Senate’s inflated preferences, it exempts him from any accusation that he’s not interested in politics or doesn’t have a constituency.
More than 1.5 million Australians voted for one of three right-wing parties grouped by political scientists as part of a broad ‘freedom movement’ opposed to lockdowns. Militant anti-incumbency has undoubtedly helped.
Shape the future?
“I literally see that Australia’s future depends on people like me,” Babet said in an audition video for party bosses.
A knack for arousing enthusiasm on the Internet’s fringes proves its political strength.
His reputation in far-right circles peaked in September 2021 when a young student was videotaped during an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne, bleeding and holding his head.
Mr. Babet’s account on Telegram, a social media service that protects anonymity, posted an account blaming the police for the injury as part of a tyrannical coup.
“THEY CRACKED HIS SKULL” shows a screenshot from his social media account. “This is what the Victoria Police Department did to this man.”
The post’s popularity came just before a false report in American far-right circles that COVID restrictions in Australia were throwing a canary in the coal mine that the young man had been murdered by police.
An obituary has been written and distributed.
But the young man was still alive, he would later confirm on Facebook.
And his head had been hit in an entirely accidental altercation with a shopkeeper, witnesses and friends told him over an apparent dispute over not paying for alcohol.
“The story didn’t make sense at all, but the point is, he just kept pushing,” said Joel Hill, who revealed Mr. Babet’s role during today’s coverage of the riots in The Conditional Release Program.
The podcast is a thoroughly researched and current look at events on the far right that would otherwise be impossible to pin down.
That is the moment, says Mr. Hill, when the incoming senator made his bones in a global protest movement but also kicked a damaging falsehood.
“If you’re shameless, they’ll just shower you with attention — and possibly money — but definitely an influence,” he said.
“There was a hysteria around the riots [being] a symbol that Australia had fallen [… and become] a kind of dictatorship.
“And this [false story] went around the world as a sign of what the police were doing.”
In a fast-moving social media world, the facts were built on suspicion of authority (when the shopkeeper’s testimony made the rounds, many on Telegram suggested that the boy forcibly retracted his story).
Mr. Hill says past experience suggests the election of even a fringe vote in the Senate who espouses conspiracy thoughts could lead to the Senate floor being used to provide sound bites and legitimacy to shows like the wildly popular and baseless Infowars.
“I guarantee he will be presented as speaking on behalf of the Australian government,” he said.
But former MP Craig Kelly, who lost the election but plans to retain a role as federal director of the UAP, says elected Senator Babet will be an asset to parliament.
“He’s very intelligent and well-spoken,” he tells TND.
“His background is Mauritian, and he is a dead letter for Dwayne [‘The Rock’] johnson.
“The freedom vote was very divided, but there [was] a good 10 to 12 percent of the electorate who supported it.
“We were reviled and criticized, I think; time shows we were right.”
Babet said he would speak to the press after the electoral commission officially declared his election, but did not respond when he received a copy of a message posted to his name during the September protests.
