1 day Ago By Sean Johnson
Meet Sakellarios Bairamis, One Nation’s candidate for Lingiari in the Northern Territory. Known as “Charlie”, the 40-year-old care worker and roofer — who it seems likes to test sartorial norms with his paisley shirt and tie — is a father of five from Darwin who keeps chooks and pigs. Charlie is campaigning on law and order by holding “offenders accountable” through “tougher sentencing”.
He has also faced criminal court proceedings on five matters over the past six years. NT Local Court daily listings reveal that Charlie’s interactions with the law began in 2019 when police caught him with a “thing” to administer drugs. When Crikey contacted him to ask what this thing was, he said it was a bong.
Or, as he called it, a “billabong”. Court records show he pleaded guilty, with the magistrate recording a conviction and imposing financial penalties totalling $1,150 — a $1,000 fine and a $150 levy. Then, in 2022, his dealings with police stepped up a notch when he was accused of taking part in an unauthorised parade, walking without due care on the road, and entering a pedestrian crossing on a red light.
The story, by Charlie’s telling, is that in late 2021 he was arrested and handcuffed for being a ringleader of an illegal march in Darwin against the NT government’s COVID vaccine mandates . Charlie stressed that he’s not an anti-vaxxer (“I’m vaccinated!”), but opposed the government forcing many workers to get the shot. He saw the arrest as “a political tool” designed to stop him from “standing up against mandates”.
When the matter came to court, the magistrate found police were unjustified in arresting him and should have instead issued an on-the-spot fine, Charlie claims. Crikey can’t verify the magistrate’s comments about the police actions, but court records show the magistrate didn’t record a conviction following Charlie’s guilty plea, instead placing him on a 12-month good behaviour bond and imposing three levies totalling $450. In January 2022, Charlie again fell afoul of the law when someone reported him not wearing a mask while out shopping one evening at Woolworths.
He copped a $5,024 fine. The infringement notice shows that someone known to Charlie photographed him sans mask and told police because they thought he was an “anti-vaxxer”. After receiving the notice, Charlie said he told police he had a medical exemption because of his asthma, but apparently the police were unmoved.
He challenged the fine and had a victory of sorts, with court records showing prosecutors withdrew the case about 12 months later. When Crikey asked Charlie why he is running for One Nation, he said, “I was happy to stand up for people’s freedoms in the past and I will continue to do so.” He stressed he declared all his run-ins with the law in his application to be a One Nation candidate and says the party selection committee was not concerned, given no cases involved any violence.
But Charlie, Crikey asked, isn’t it a tiny bit hypocritical for someone with a criminal record to campaign on law and order? “Not at all [because] I took accountability for it,” he said. “Paid my fines. Just like someone paying a speeding fine.
” A spokesperson for One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the senator knew about Charlie’s court matters before he was preselected and saw “no contradiction” with his campaign to crack down on crime. Have something to say about this article? Write to us at [email protected].
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