Sydney, Australia:
An Australian lawmaker says he has changed his name to Austin “Aussie” Trump to follow in the footsteps of the US president in calling out “woke lefty nonsense”.
The Western Australia state politician, formerly known as Ben Dawkins, shared a photo on social media of an official January 29 registry document showing his new name: Austin Letts Trump.
His presidentially inspired name — “Hon. Aussie Trump” — now features on the Western Australia parliamentary website.
Trump said his new name was a protest against a lack of political diversity in parliament, with most politicians in the state legislature belonging to the centre-left Labor party.
This meant reform was passing parliament without scrutiny, the 53-year-old told AFP.
The Australian drew inspiration for his new first name from former Aussie Rules player Austinn “Aussie” Jones, while his last name is a nod to the US president.
“There is value in, not all, but many of the ways that Trump has approached things. He is calling out government wastage, government voting against people or acting against people. He is good at calling that out and calling out what we might call woke lefty nonsense.”
The politician said he hoped to hear from his US namesake but had received no word yet.
And he had “no plans” to revert to his original name.
Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said Thursday he was “speechless” at the “attention-seeking” stunt.
In 2023, Dawkins was dumped from the state’s centre-left Labor government after a court found he sent relatives “emotionally manipulative” emails in breach of a restraining order.
He briefly joined the anti-immigration One Nation Party in 2024, but left when the party did not endorse him on its ticket.
The lawmaker is running as an independent candidate in Western Australian state elections to be held in March.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)