Politics

Please Enjoy This Footage Of A One Nation Candidate Being Asked About His Sex Shop

It's impossible to look away.

by Tom Clift  11 November 2017
One Nation Sex Shop

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One Nation has been left red-faced after failing to properly vet one of its candidates in the upcoming Queensland state election. If you’re feeling a sense of deja vu right now, then welcome to the club. We’ve already been through this with the woman who said gay people “needed treatment”. There was also the guy who resigned over a blog post claiming the Port Arthur massacre was a hoax. And let’s not forget the ex-cop who was accused of abducting a group of Indigenous kids.

Honestly, does anyone in that organisation know how to use a search engine?

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So it is we arrive at Mark Thorton, the One Nation candidate for the seat of Thuringowa in northern Queensland. Turns out Thornton owns a sex shop, because of course he does. Not only that, but the adult retail outlet in question — named Cupids Cabin, in case you were wondering — has posted a number of less than appropriate things on its Facebook page, include one post from January 2016 positing that “good sex should be in the gray area between ‘tickle fight’ and domestic violence.”

More recently, in September of this year, the store posted a message that read “I’m selling bra’s inbox a pic of your titties so I could see if I got your size.”

During a media appearance on Friday, Thorton and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson were asked about the posts, and it was maybe the most cringeworthy thing in the entire world.

I honestly couldn’t tell you the most uncomfortable thing about this clip. Is it Thornton trying to explain away a joke about domestic violence with a reference to 50 Shades of Grey? Is it Hanson admitting that she has no idea about any of this? Is it the straight-faced manner in which the reporter says the word “titties”?

Thorton claimed he was not aware of the posts, which he said may have been made by a staff member. “I haven’t actually seen the site for quite a while,” he said.

In any case, people on the internet have been having a field day with the footage. Which, fair enough, tbh.

Hanson has subsequently said that she will not be disendorsing Thornton over the posts. “If I think something is wrong, I will do something about it but in this case it’s not wrong,” she said.

For what it’s worth, despite their repeated blunders, One Nation is still expected to attract big numbers at the Queensland election on November 25. A recent poll put their vote at 18 percent. So yeah, god help us all.