Yesterday we found out that Jim Molan, parliament’s newest Liberal senator, has a history of sharing far-right, anti-Muslim videos from Britain First, a fascist political party in the UK.

The videos, which were shared on Molan’s personal Facebook account, were misleadingly titled by Britain First to stoke anti-Muslim fervour. One video shared by Molan, labelled “Muslim thugs beat young girl in Holland!”, had nothing to do with Muslims. But even when that was pointed out to Molan he refused to take it down.

Molan is under fire from Labor and the Greens over the posts, but so far he’s standing firm and refusing to apologise or take them down. He says the posts were intended to spark a conversation. The Liberal party, however, doesn’t appear to give a shit. They’ve welcomed him into parliament with open arms, and this afternoon Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull refused to admonish him when asked about the scandal in Question Time.

Senator Jim Molan is welcomed to the Coalition party room this morning pic.twitter.com/PGPgyDdtg0

— Alex Ellinghausen (@ellinghausen) February 5, 2018

Molan’s Excuse Doesn’t Stack Up

When Molan was first questioned by journalists about why he shared the videos his spokesperson said “the senator often posts material in order to generate debate”.

This is a garbage excuse. Firstly, it’s a cop out. Are we seriously supposed to believe that Molan didn’t agree with any of the sentiments expressed in the videos, but just stumbled across a treasure trove of far-right propaganda and decided to share them over a series of weeks simply to “generate debate”? But more importantly, what kind of “debate” was he hoping to generate?

The comments were full of racist hate-speech, which is exactly what you would expect. They weren’t videos designed to “generate debate”. They were designed to provoke and inflame tension. They were produced by an organisation whose leaders have been charged with causing religiously aggravated harassment.

Molan has now acknowledged that Britain First is “appalling” and denied knowing about the organisation’s political history. But he still hasn’t apologised for sharing the videos, instead saying “well, the videos stand by themselves”, whatever that means.

“What I was trying to achieve was to say to people that the breakdown of society through violence and antisocial behaviour is something that we should all be very, very aware of,” he said.

It’s a strange line that makes even less sense when you consider that Donald Trump apologised for doing exactly the same thing: sharing Britain First propaganda on social media.

So Molan wants to distance himself from Britain First, but he’s reluctant to actually criticise the videos or express any regret for sharing them. Videos that were created specifically to generate anti-Muslim attitudes in the community. It seems like such an easy thing to disavow. Even Donald Trump did it! But Molan is holding firm, and even the Prime Minister is sticking by him.

Turnbull Stuck Up For Molan

During Question Time today Bill Shorten asked Turnbull:

“Given the Prime Minister has just said ‘every member of the government has absolutely zero tolerance for racism’, will the Prime Minister direct Senator Molan to take down the racist and bigoted material he’s sharing?”

Turnbull replied with a very strong defence of Molan, and attempted to use the senator’s former military career as some kind of shield:

“[Molan] defended Australians’ values in the battle against Islamist terrorism in the Middle East,” Turnbull said. “He has stood up for our values, put his life on the line, led our troops and our allies’ troops in conflict. He has led thousands of troops in the battle for freedom against terrorism.

“The leader of the opposition wants to describe him as a racist. That is deplorable. It is disgusting. Jim Molan is a great Australian soldier. We are lucky to have him in the Senate. He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. He has stood up for freedom, stood up against extremism.”

We’ll get to Molan’s involvement in the Middle East in a bit, but let’s be clear about Turnbull’s response. When presented with a very clear, very direct opportunity to admonish Molan for sharing completely made-up, actual fascist propaganda that even Donald fucking Trump disavowed he totally squibbed it. He gave Molan his full backing and even went on the offensive, declaring Bill Shorten “disgusting” for daring to bring it up.

The Prime Minister of Australia apparently has no problem with one of his own senators sharing these kinds of views. That sums up everything you need to know about the toxic state of politics in this country at the moment, especially on race issues.

The Liberals must have known this story was coming. It took journalists less than a day to find the posts on Molan’s Facebook page. Either they weren’t paying any attention to what one of their candidates was posting, or they didn’t care. Both are extremely dire scenarios.

Molan’s Military History Can’t Be Used As A Smokescreen

While defending his sharing of the videos, Molan said “I fought for Muslims in Iraq and many Iraqis were alive when I left because of the actions I took”. That line, along with Turnbull’s attempts to bring up Molan’s “battle against Islamist terrorism” to try and defend him demonstrate that the Liberals think his military background provides enough cover to get him through this scandal.

But that doesn’t stack up. Molan was deployed in 2004 during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq by the US-led coalition. Regardless of your personal view on the conflict, it’s bizarre to cite involvement in that war as proof that Molan is somehow inherently pro-Muslim. The war was illegal under international law and lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Referring to Molan’s role in the war as some kind of definitive proof he is not racist, as Turnbull did today, holds no water. No one is even accusing Molan himself of being racist, just suggesting that would be a good idea for the government of this country to distance itself from a fascist political party in the UK.

Molan’s military career has helped propel him into the world of professional punditry, and he regularly writes opinion pieces on various policy issues. Last year he proposed the idea of “detention without trial” (otherwise known as internment) for people on the terror watch list. He is also one of the architects of Operation Sovereign Borders, Australia’s hardline immigration policy which combines boat turn backs with mandatory offshore detention.

Molan is well and truly on the right-wing of the political spectrum, especially when it comes to matters of immigration. In that context it’s not “deplorable” to pursue his sharing of Britain First propaganda, as Malcolm Turnbull alleges. If Molan and the government don’t want to be associated with extreme, anti-Muslim views they have had ample opportunities to express that.

Their failure to do anything suggests that they’re quite comfortable with the perception of Molan, and the wider Liberal party, as promoters of anti-Muslim views. Even if the concept isn’t totally shocking, it’s still deeply disturbing to have it reinforced so blatantly.

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Osman Faruqi is Junkee’s News & Politics Editor. Follow him @Oz_f