This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Outgoing far right senator Fraser Anning has written to the Queen and governor general pleading with them not to strip Order of Australia honours from one of his political party’s former candidates, who is also a robot sex expert.

Adrian Cheok received a Queen’s Birthday honour earlier this month for “significant services to international education”. His award is facing a formal challenge on the basis of his past behaviour on social media.

In what could be one of his final acts as a senator before his term officially expires on Sunday, Anning asked Australia’s head of state and her representatives to not bow to pressure from “activists and academics”. He insisted the award has been bestowed on a “greatly deserving” and “distinguished scientist”.

“He is, in fact, one of the most inspirational people I have ever met,” the far-right politician wrote in the letter to the Queen on his parliamentary letterhead.

Professor Adrian David Cheok (@adriancheok) Letter written by Senator Fraser Anning to Her Majesty The Queen. Thank you for your amazing support for me Senator Anning! Thank you for your incredible support for free speech and liberties in our great country of Australia dear Senator Anning! pic.twitter.com/YxRjtWGhtq

At the May federal election, Cheok attracted 868 votes in the lower=house seat of Boothby in South Australia running for Fraser Anning’s Conservative National party.

Cheok and Anning also say they are setting up a graduate school that will teach classes on “Trumpism” and “Bannonism”.

Anning was censured and condemned roundly by the Senate earlier this year for his “inflammatory and divisive” comments on the Christchurch massacre.

In the correspondence to the Queen and governor general, Anning claims the push to strip Cheok of the honour is punishment for his political beliefs.

“I implore Your Majesty not to allow Your Majesty’s authority to be used as a tool to achieve the political goals of an intolerant and powerful sector of our society,” Anning wrote.

Anning warned stripping Cheok of his honour would “open a Pandora’s box of potentially devastating, unintended consequences of a magnitude we can not predict”.

He signed off the letter to the Queen: “Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant”.

The Queensland senator also published an article on the blog of the late controversial cartoonist Larry Pickering, defending Cheok’s credentials and criticising media coverage of Cheok’s award, including Guardian Australia’s reporting.

“The gutter press have now smeared Adrian as Robot Sex Man, and are writing hit piece after hit piece, trying to bring him down, and silence him,” Anning wrote.

Taxpayers paid for Fraser Anning's $3,000 flights on day after Christchurch shooting Read more

Cheok is listed on the organising committee of a love and sex with robots international congress to be held in Brussels next week.

Cheok has previously insisted he is a worthy winner of an Order of Australia award.

“I was awarded an Order of Australia based on my work as a computer scientist and electrical engineer who has made world-pioneering inventions in augmented and virtual reality, AI and robotics,” Cheok told Guardian Australia last week.

“With the academic h-index of 45 I am ranked in the top 0.05% of all computer scientists in the world and leading in Australia.” (The h-index measures the productivity and citation impact of an academic’s publications).

He dismissed suggestions his award might be challenged.

“I expect nothing will happen because this is about creating a perception and getting an emotional public reaction rather than dealing in precise facts,” he said.

The Digital Games Research Association Australia chapter president, Brendan Keogh, said last week he intends to challenge Cheok’s award because of his conduct on social media.

“He’s not a worthy recipient due to his track record of abusive behaviour towards other academics in his field,” he said.

Keogh cited the incident in 2017 where conference organisers issued a formal apology after Cheok made personal attacks on Twitter against academics who had raised ethical concerns about his research.

Cheok responded to Guardian Australia’s recent coverage by calling the journalist “Marxist gutter trash” and a “communist Hyenna (sic)” on Twitter.

There were 1,374 nominations for the Queen’s birthday awards and 993 were handed out in 2019. In 2015 there were 748 nominations and 519 awards.

Federal Labor has flagged it will grill the office of the governor general about the due diligence process, at upcoming Senate estimates hearings, following a huge boost in the numbers of nominations in the past five years.

