{"id":832645,"date":"2026-07-30T03:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T03:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832645\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T03:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T03:58:18","slug":"queensland-mp-pens-white-men-can-sprint-social-media-post-after-lachlan-kennedy-takes-silver-in-glasgow-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832645\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland MP pens \u2018White Men Can Sprint\u2019 social media post after Lachlan Kennedy takes silver in Glasgow | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal Coalition MP Llew O\u2019Brien has declared it\u2019s \u201cencouraging to see a White Australian\u201d win a sprinting medal at the Commonwealth Games, after Lachlan Kennedy took silver<\/a> when setting a new national record in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, the member for Wide Bay in Queensland<\/a>, wrote on social media on Wednesday: \u201cWhite Men Can Sprint!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLachlan Kennedy\u2019s performance in the 100 metres final at the Commonwealth Games was absolutely outstanding,\u201d the LNP MP said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough he narrowly missed gold by just two hundredths of a second, his brilliant 9.85 seconds not only broke the long-standing Australian record held by sprinting great Patrick Johnson, it also announced Australia as a genuine force in world sprinting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also encouraging to see a White Australian compete at this level in one of the world\u2019s premier sprint events.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LachieLachie Kennedy becomes Australia\u2019s fastest sprinter of all time<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien went on to write that his \u201cobservation isn\u2019t intended to diminish the extraordinary achievements of Black athletes, who have dominated elite sprinting for many years\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simply an acknowledgement that Australians of every background can take pride in seeing someone who reflects their own heritage succeed at the highest level,\u201d he wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, downplayed the comments from his backbencher, who has previously hosed down speculation he was considering a switch to One Nation.<\/p>\n

Taylor, asked about O\u2019Brien\u2019s comments on Thursday, praised the achievements of all Australian athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care what their background is,\u201d Taylor told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI congratulate all Australians who are competing for Australia and doing well. We want it. We love Australians winning medals. We love Australians succeeding. We always have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy took silver in the 100m final behind Cameroon\u2019s Emmanuel Eseme, who won the gold in a Commonwealth Games record time of 9.83 seconds. Bronze was won by Nigeria\u2019s Kayinsola Ajayi, who ran 9.90.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage,\u201d O\u2019Brien said in his social media post.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhether you\u2019re Black or White, pride in who you are is good when it doesn\u2019t come at the expense of respect for others. Congratulations to Lachlan, and well done to every athlete who represented Australia in green and gold at the Commonwealth Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien has a reputation as being somewhat of a maverick. In 2020, he moved a spill motion against then-leader and deputy prime minister Michael McCormack, in a bid to allow Barnaby Joyce to contest the leadership.<\/p>\n

That motion failed, and O\u2019Brien temporarily split from the Nationals party room.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien later accepted a nomination from the Labor opposition<\/a> to serve as the parliament\u2019s deputy speaker, which had been proposed in an attempt to deny the government\u2019s endorsed candidate, the Victorian MP Damian Drum.<\/p>\n

There had previously been speculation that O\u2019Brien could follow Joyce and leave the Nationals to join One Nation amid the rise of Pauline Hanson\u2019s party in Queensland and Nationals-held areas of the country.<\/p>\n

But O\u2019Brien said in May that he would remain a Nationals member \u201cuntil I either choose to retire or when the people choose to retire me\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal Coalition MP Llew O\u2019Brien has declared it\u2019s \u201cencouraging to see a White Australian\u201d win a sprinting medal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-832645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}