Friday 27 February 2026

Topics: Gatecrashing incident at the Boundary Hotel

E&OE

Tom Elliot: The meeting was called by the Member for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, who joins us now. Tim, good morning.

Tim Wilson MP: Good morning, Tom.

Tom Elliot: So what happened?

Tim Wilson MP: Well we have a series of community forums. This one was focused on post-Bondi, how do we promote social cohesion and a respectful society and midway through my staff were alerted that gentlemen wearing CFMEU t-shirts and other types of t-shirts for known nationalist groups were forming out the back and then they basically proceeded to storm in and interrupt the meeting and started shouting.

Tom Elliot: How many of them were there?

Tim Wilson MP: There was about, if I recall correctly, five and I mean it wasn't a huge forum but it was you know people wanted to get together and have a polite conversation about how to take the country forward but you know they came in started filming started shouting and now there's a video of it circulating I understand online.

Tom Elliot: What sorts of things were they shouting at you?

Tim Wilson MP: They were shouting mostly in the context of issues of they would say crime and immigration but of course it was also intonated with some pretty hostile language about the tone and direction of conversations and where they wanted to go but we tried to de-escalate the situation by simply pointing out that everybody else was putting their hand up and sitting down and we were going one by one and that they were able to raise legitimate concerns if they wanted to, but they just want to shout over each other.

Tom Elliot: Do they make any specific threats against you?

Tim Wilson MP: In this context, no, I'm not going to say that. They didn't. But they didn't intimidate a lot of people to the point that people wanted to move away. People were very concerned. And the Victoria Police came. But I just want to thank both the Victoria Police and the staff at the Boundary Hotel who did an excellent job in making sure that everybody was safe.

Tom Elliot: In your tweet, I don't know what we call them now, on X last night, about 10 to 9, you said the meeting was stormed by CFMEU and neo-Nazis. So was that because of the stuff that they were wearing that you identified them like that?

Tim Wilson MP: That's correct. So that was what they were wearing and that was brought to our attention. Now the extent to which it's organised is an entirely different matter but that was what occurred.

Tom Elliot: I remember 13 years ago when I started doing what was the drive show back then, full-time, I arranged a coffee with the then Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who'd just been elected, and he came down here on a tram, and we had a coffee here, one other person with him, and I thought isn't this amazing, the Prime Minister of Australia travelling on public transport with one advisor. Our caller Tony before wonders, like, will you have to have security in the future when you have these events?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, that's a decision between the AFP and myself, of course, and I'd rather, of course, not. But unfortunately, in the past, and in the very recent past, I've had to have security at certain community events. And I think it's an unfortunate reality that at least some people will have to have that. I've been open in public about the fact that because of my strong support for the Jewish community, I have received antisemitic threats. Because of my sexuality, I've got homophobic threats as well. And it's just, unfortunately, tragically part of public life today.

Tom Elliot: Good news though, I heard that after the people who invited the event were removed, the event continued.

Tim Wilson MP: It did. So by not escalating it and keeping everybody calm we were able to get them to a position where they left and the event did continue to the end which was a good outcome but you know some people were understandably shaken by what happened but we were able to keep it at a calm pace rather than a shouting match which could have gone very badly.

Tom Elliot: Alright, good to hear. Thank you for joining us. Tim Wilson there. He's the newly appointed Shadow Treasurer and of course the Liberal MP for Goldstein.

ENDS