One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface
Parminder Singh said gay people have a mental illness in a video, prompting party distancing and profile removal
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Camera IconBarnaby Joyce says a One Nation candidate's homophobic comments did not represent the party. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS) Credit: AAP
Photograph: PerthNow (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Parminder Singh, a former One Nation WA candidate, said in a video that gay people have a mental illness and opposed same-sex marriage.
- One Nation removed Singh’s profile from its website after the comments became public, as reported by ABC Australia and others.
- Barnaby Joyce, a One Nation MP, called the party 'one of the gayest in Australia' while distancing it from Singh’s remarks.
- LGBTQIA+ advocates condemned the comments as harmful, with Equality Australia calling them 'outdated and deeply offensive'.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. Coverage measured .
Trust
68/100
Craft
95/100
Hype
30/100
6 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
Only 1 of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Parminder Singh, a former One Nation candidate for Western Australia’s upper house, said in a social media video that gay people have a mental illness. The comments were posted by Perth comedian Jasky Singh, who shared clips of the interview. In the video, Parminder Singh also claimed that same-sex relationships were an 'advertisement' to young people and that women who tried relationships with women would not 'go back' to men.
One Nation removed Singh’s candidate profile from its website after the video became public. ABC Australia reported that the profile was still visible when it first contacted the party but was taken down later. Barnaby Joyce, a federal One Nation MP, said the comments were 'highly offensive' and did not represent the party. Joyce told ABC TV that One Nation was 'one of the gayest parties in Australia' and had a 'large proportion of gay people'.
LGBTQIA+ groups condemned Singh’s remarks. Meaghan Holden, CEO of Living Proud Inc in WA, said the comments were 'inaccurate, harmful and inconsistent with decades of medical and psychological understanding'. Anna Brown, head of Equality Australia, called the remarks 'outdated and deeply offensive' and said they contributed to stigma and social exclusion.
What the coverage left out
None of the digests from the left-rated outlets mentioned Singh’s comments about transgender people, which were reported in full by ABC Australia. The right-rated digest from The West Australian did not mention the removal of Singh’s profile from One Nation’s website. PerthNow’s centre-rated report did not include reactions from LGBTQIA+ advocates.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 4 times, most recently on 12 Aug 2026, 14:30, and will add the sides that appear.
How other outlets pictured it
Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.
Barnaby Joyce says it was clear Mr Singh "hasn't been around farms". (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
ABC Australia — embedded from source
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
4 rated outlets
- The left-rated reports led on Singh’s comments about gay people having a mental illness. ABC Australia’s full report quoted Singh directly, including his claim that 'no-one born anything' and that parents were to blame for homosexuality. It also carried reactions from LGBTQIA+ advocates, including Meaghan Holden and Anna Brown, who called the remarks harmful and baseless.
- ABC Australia and QNews noted that Singh’s profile was removed from One Nation’s website after the party was contacted about the video. ABC Australia quoted Joyce’s remark that One Nation was 'one of the gayest parties in Australia' but placed it in the context of his distancing from Singh’s views. The left-rated digests from The Canberra Times and OUTInPerth also led on the removal of Singh’s profile and the party’s response.
Centre
1 rated outlet
- PerthNow’s full report led on Barnaby Joyce’s remark that One Nation was 'one of the gayest parties in Australia'. It quoted Joyce directly, including his claim that the party had a 'large proportion of gay people' and that Singh’s comments were 'highly offensive'. The report also noted that Singh’s profile had been removed from the party’s website but did not include reactions from LGBTQIA+ groups.
Right
1 rated outlet
- The West Australian’s digest led on Joyce’s attempt to distance One Nation from Singh’s comments. It did not mention Singh’s specific remarks about gay people having a mental illness or the removal of his profile from the party’s website. The digest did not include reactions from LGBTQIA+ advocates or quotes from Singh’s video.
Read it at the source
6 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
4- One Nation identity Parminder Singh says gay people have a mental illness (opens OUTInPerth in a new tab)
OUTInPerth — is OUTInPerth biased? Our profile of this outlet
- One Nation 'one of the gayest' political parties: Joyce (opens The Canberra Times in a new tab)
The Canberra Times — is The Canberra Times biased? Our profile of this outlet
- One Nation removes WA candidate from website after bizarre anti-gay interview (opens QNews in a new tab)
- One Nation candidate says gay people have a mental illness (opens ABC Australia in a new tab)
ABC Australia — is ABC Australia biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
1Right
1Not rated
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 67% are rated left, 16% are rated centre, 17% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface biased?
- One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface is one event reported by 6 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered One Nation removes WA candidate after anti-gay remarks surface?
- 6 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- What did Parminder Singh say about gay people?
- Singh said in a video that gay people have a mental illness and claimed same-sex relationships were an 'advertisement' to young people. He also said women who tried relationships with women would not 'go back' to men. The comments were widely condemned by LGBTQIA+ advocates as harmful and baseless.
- How did One Nation respond to Singh’s comments?
- One Nation removed Singh’s candidate profile from its website after the comments became public. Barnaby Joyce, a One Nation MP, called the party 'one of the gayest in Australia' while distancing it from Singh’s remarks, which he described as 'highly offensive'.
- Which outlets reported reactions from LGBTQIA+ groups?
- ABC Australia and OUTInPerth reported reactions from LGBTQIA+ advocates. Meaghan Holden of Living Proud Inc called the comments 'inaccurate and harmful', while Anna Brown of Equality Australia described them as 'outdated and deeply offensive'. PerthNow and The West Australian did not include these reactions.
How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
