Australian politician slammed over Kanye praise

News.com.au

15-05-2025

This is not a drill. This is not clickbait.
This is a sitting senator in the Australian parliament proudly announcing to his followers that his 'song of the week' is Kanye West's 'Heil Hitler.'
Yes, that song, the one featuring the voice of Adolf Hitler himself.
Let me say that again, because I never imagined I'd have to: An elected federal politician in 2025 has praised a song that glorifies history's greatest mass murderer.
Ralph Babet, who somehow believes this is just a matter of personal taste, has not only applauded a piece of Holocaust-themed propaganda, he's gone further.
In the same rant, he declared he'd rather spend time with neo-Nazis than with what he called 'mentally ill' and 'baby-killing' left-wing Australians.
Just when you think it can't get any worse, he adds that it was all 'tongue-in-cheek.' That he wouldn't really hang out with neo-Nazis because, well, they'd want to deport him for being brown.
And sure, he also claims he was just sharing a 'good song' by a 'great artist' and that attempts to label him a Nazi were 'f**ing bulls**t'.
Be that as it may, this isn't politics. This seems like moral vandalism with a Senate badge.
And the most terrifying part? This wasn't buried in some dark corner of the internet. It was posted on Instagram for all to see.
It was loud, proud, and unrepentant. This was a megaphone, not a mistake.
Let us not lose sight of what this moment represents. Adolf Hitler is not a vibe. He is not a meme.
His name does not belong on a Spotify playlist.
It belongs to the ashes of Auschwitz and Treblinka. It belongs to gas chambers, to mass graves, to tattooed arms and shattered families.
When you celebrate that name, when you call 'Heil Hitler' your favourite song, you are desecrating the memory of six million Jews and every Australian soldier who fought to defeat the regime that name represents.
And when you say you'd rather hang out with members of a neo-Nazi group than with your fellow Australians, you are not making a joke. You are not being edgy.
You are giving the ugliest people in this country a green light.
With songs like this being shared by a senator, you wonder whether the National Socialist Network even needs to promote themselves anymore.
There is a reason these words matter. Because when hate is amplified by power, it spreads faster. Louder. Deeper. The lines blur.
The fringe moves to the centre. And before long, what once shocked becomes routine.
I'm not interested in Senator Babet's denials of being a Nazi. That's irrelevant.
The issue is not his intent. The issue is the impact. His words will be quoted in extremist forums.
Clipped, reposted, celebrated. Kanye's video will become a calling card for white supremacists who now feel they have a friend in parliament.
And what does it say to Jewish Australians? That in 2025, they still have to hear something featuring the name 'Hitler' praised in the public square? That the horrors their grandparents survived are now a punchline for social media engagement?
Enough.
This is not just offensive. This is dangerous.
With these kind of acts, the National Socialist Network, which once had to operate on the fringes of society, doesn't need to market itself anymore.
He claims it was all 'tongue-in-cheek.' He says the neo-Nazis wouldn't want him anyway, because of his background. As if that somehow makes it better.
It doesn't.
You don't joke about Holocaust glorification. You don't wink at songs containing the symbols of mass extermination. You don't casually name-drop Hitler as part of your weekly vibe check.
If a schoolteacher praised this song, they'd be fired. If a corporate CEO did it, they'd be gone before lunch.
But a senator? Still seated. Still empowered.
And that tells us something terrifying: that the old lines—the moral boundaries that once held this country together—are being erased.
That we've grown numb to the rising temperature. This is not political correctness gone mad. This is not a matter of free speech.
That's why I'm calling on Clive Palmer to do what any decent leader would do: disendorse Ralph Babet and denounce this latest act, without spin, without delay.
Because if we allow a song called 'Heil Hitler' to be proudly promoted by someone sitting in our Senate, then we are not just failing the victims of the past—we are failing the future of this nation.
This is not a Jewish issue. This is not a left or right issue. This is an Australian issue.
Dr Dvir Abramovich is Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission and the author of eight books
Senator Ralph Babet hits back
In a statement to news.com.au, Senator Babet insisted he was not a 'Nazi sympathiser', urging critics to 'read the lyrics of the song before they accuse me of being something I most certainly am not'.
'Kanye West's song, as is obvious to all who have listened to it, is not glorifying Nazis or Adolf Hitler,' he said, claiming the 'entire point of the song.. is that Hitler is bad'.
'The song begins with Kanye West confessing that he is filled with rage and anger. Worse, he is hopelessly addicted to drugs. Then he admits … 'I'm the villain.' It's in THAT context he sings 'Heil Hitler' … not to acknowledge Hitler's desire to kill Jews but in the sense that Hitler, in our culture, has come to mean the devil,' he claimed.
'And Kanye fears that he himself, filled with insatiable rage and his mind screwed up by drugs, has become the devil. Or, if you will, Hitler. He's saying I'm angry, I'm completely messed up in the head. I'm basically Hitler. The reaction to my admission that I liked the song demonstrates how many people in this country flick their mouth to outrage before engaging their brain into first gear.'
Mr Babet added that 'people should be free to listen to whatever they want'.
'I won't be apologising for liking Kanye's song because the song neither endorses Hitler nor promotes Nazis. Far from it. The song, as I have said, depicts Hitler and the Nazis as the personification of evil. That so many people ran to outraged over a song they have either not bothered to listen to or completely failed to understand says a great deal more about them than it says about me.'