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Getting the facts straight on my day in court

Family First Party

Statement from Lyle Shelton

 

Last week’s article in The Courier-Mail about my ongoing legal case with two drag queens managed to get several important facts wrong — and, just as significantly, left out the very issues that gave rise to this case in the first place.

 

Let’s start with the basics.

 

The journalist repeatedly described me as a “politician.” That is simply not accurate. I do not hold elected office. I am the National Director of the Family First Party and a candidate for the NSW Legislative Council, but that is not the same thing as being a politician. It’s a basic distinction, and one that a journalist working for a metropolitan newspaper should know.

 

 

More importantly, the article failed to report the substance of my original concerns — the very reason I’ve been sued.

 

Back in 2020, I wrote a blog raising concerns about a “Drag Queen Story Time” event held in a Brisbane City Council public library. My concern was — and remains — about the promotion of radical gender fluid ideology and the normalisation of adult-themed performance culture to children.

 

I also raised concerns about their social media presence (examples below) and asserted this made them dangerous role models for children, given that Drag Queen Story Time is designed by LGBTQA+ political activists to target two-to-eight-year-olds.

 

 

 

None of that made it into the article.

 

There was also no mention of the fact that those suing me have demanded censorship of my blog — including material exposing the explicit online content of regular children’s drag performers such as “Frock Hudson” (pictured below). All of this context matters. It goes directly to why I spoke out and it goes directly to what I believe most parents would consider appropriate or otherwise for children’s role models.

 

 

 

Instead, readers of The Courier-Mail were given a narrow and incomplete account that reduces a serious public interest issue to a personality conflict.

 

Then there’s what happened in court last Friday.

 

What should have been a straightforward procedural step in my application for judicial review in the Supreme Court of Queensland turned into an extraordinary attempt by the other side’s lawyers, who are in part funded by the taxpayer, to have me pay their legal costs — even if I win.

 

Yes, you read that correctly.

 

After dragging me through six years of litigation, they now want protection from costs while I seek a ruling from the Supreme Court — a jurisdiction where costs are normally awarded to the successful party.

 

What a joke.

 

Let’s be clear about the history.

 

In 2023, I was cleared of vilification by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. That should have been the end of the matter.

 

Instead, the complainants — Dwayne Hill and Johnny Valkyrie — appealed. Earlier this year, an appeal tribunal allowed their appeal, but crucially, it did not find that I had vilified them.

 

Now I am seeking a judicial review of that appeal decision, as is my right.

 

This case is not about personalities. It is not about drag performers. It is about whether Australians are free to speak up about issues of public concern, especially when it comes to the wellbeing of children.

 

It is about whether raising legitimate questions about cultural trends and public events can land you in years of costly legal battles.

 

And it is about whether taxpayer-funded legal mechanisms — and in some cases taxpayer-assisted legal representation — are being used to quash free speech.

 

As my lawyer John Steenhof from the Human Rights Law Alliance has said many times, “the process becomes the punishment.”

 

Six years on, I know exactly what that means.

 

I will continue to stand my ground — not just for myself, but for every Australian who believes that freedom of speech still matters, and that speaking up to protect children from questionable influences is not something to be punished, but something to be encouraged.

 

I’m back in court on May 27.

 

The drag queens’ solicitors, the LGBT Legal Service, receive taxpayer funds. My lawyers, the Human Rights Law Alliance, receive no government assistance and my legal defence is entirely funded by freedom loving Australians. This has already been a long and costly fight and it is sadly not over. To keep free speech alive, please donate here.

Contact details:

[email protected]