VIDEO: 200 turn out for Rocky Reclaim Australia Rally
IN THE crowd of hundreds of people at yesterday's Reclaim Australia Rally, Rockhampton's Chris Hooper stood out.
With a sign hanging around his neck depicting a cartoon, the local Have A Chat drop-in centre owner, made a clear statement of his thoughts on the controversial event.
"This cartoon I thought summed up my thoughts on the matter," Chris, 62, said.
"Sometimes these things can be a little extreme and everyone needs to understand that a large percentage of Muslims that come here want to live the Australian lifestyle and only a small percentage don't.
"I used to own a farm on Emu Park Rd where workers from all over the world would come for work and I realised that we're not all that different. There's bad people from all different cultures, including Australia, and there's good people."
But Chris's views were clearly outnumbered as cheers of support echoed among the estimated 200 people at the park when One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson took to the podium where she raised her concerns of the future of the country.
"As I look across the sea of people standing here I see people from all different multicultural backgrounds and nationalities but I see that we are all Australians and that's what's important," Ms Hanson said.
"To me the Reclaim Australia Rally is about getting back the country I grew up in, it means to support the man on the land. To see foreign investors coming into our country buying our prime agricultural land and saying come on down, I don't want them to come on down, I want to encourage the man on the land to stay there.
"I have also seen my country change into different cultures that have been welcomed here and by all means we are a nation, one of the largest in the world of about 176 different cultural backgrounds. What has happened is governments have allowed different cultures to come here and maintain their own cultural beliefs, even in our courts.
"I am against Islam in Australia, I'm not targeting Muslims; I'm targeting the ideology of what Islam stands for. We do not want or need Sharia Law in Australia.
"When I was a Member for Parliament and people got their citizenship I used to say, I welcome you as long as you give Australia you're undivided loyalty."