The two Western Australia backbenchers who could be responsible for Tony Abbott’s downfall have a colourful history.
Luke Simpkins, who will move the spill motion on Tuesday backed by colleague Don Randall, made a speech to Parliament in 2011 in which he attacked Halal certification for food.
“By having Australians unwittingly eating Halal food we are all one step down the path towards the conversion, and that is a step we should only make with full knowledge and one that should not be imposed upon us without us knowing,” Simpkins said.
“What is happening is wrong. Too often the minorities in this country are looked after without regard to the majority.”
Opposition leader Bill Shorten named Simpkins as one of a handful of Coalition MPs who wanted to ban the burqa.
Simpkins, who has been MP for Cowan since 2007, was ridiculed for posting concerns on Facebook shortly after the Martin Place siege over what he thought were Islamic stickers on a Perth train station.
“Last week I noticed black disks that appeared to be Shahada symbols. Thanks to the transport minister and his adviser for getting them painted over quickly after my call,” the post said.
The stickers were in fact promoting a local nightclub.
Randall first entered federal parliament in 1996 and has represented Canning since 2001.
In 2008, he was part of a group of Coalition MPs who boycotted then prime minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations. Simpkins was also part of this group.
Randall again courted controversy in 2010 for referring to the ABC as “gay-BC” during a doorstop interview before parliament.
Randall was accused of sexism in 2011 for referring to the mining industry as “pussy whipped” by then prime minister Julia Gillard. He said the comment, made at a Friends of Mining lunch in Parliament House, was “tongue in cheek”.
The MP was at the centre of two expenses scandals exposed in 2013, when he was accused of misusing his parliamentary entitlements.
He offered to pay back more than $5,000 of public money for a trip to Cairns for him and his wife, where he claimed he had “electoral business”. Shortly after the trip, the Randalls bought a property in Cairns. Abbott defended the claims at the time, saying Randall had important business to discuss with then Liberal party whip Warren Entsch.
Questions also arose after Randall claimed a $5,000 trip to Melbourne to watch an AFL match. He claimed he visited the city for “sittings of parliament”.
Randall was also a vocal critic of Labor’s crackdown on the misuse of 457 working visas, which he called “racist” legislation.
