Poor Ol’ Lyle Shelton Just Cannot Get Back The Relevance He Had During The Marriage Equality Survey

Lyle Shelton has found something else to be furious about, and this time, it’s apparently about a children’s garden trail, and how the gays are ruining botanic gardens, or something (??).

Flowers, a picture book, some stamps. The combination eyeroll-and-jaw-clench I did when first coming across this story was so enormous that it literally gave me a tension headache.

The Family First national director is demanding Courtney Act (or, Shane Jenek) be stripped of her Botanic Gardens of Sydney ambassadorship and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney’s Confetti and the Rainbow Garden activity – which is based on Act’s children’s book of the same name – be cancelled. Because God forbid children encounter a rainbow without a manchild making it everyone else’s fucking problem.

But before we let another round of Shelton’s bullshit consume our week, there’s something rather soothing to look at. Look at these spikes of interest over the years, undoubtedly when he’s completely made up yet another arbitrary issue. Look how short majority of them are.

Up he goes. Down he comes.

So, erm, why exactly is Lyle Shelton targeting Courtney Act?

Shelton has even demanded NSW Premier Chris Minns to intervene, accusing the government of promoting “harmful gender-fluid ideology” and demanding it “discontinue the Confetti children’s activity”.

His statement also drags in Courtney’s association with Equality Australia and its support for gender-affirming healthcare.

In the world according to Lyle, apparently only right-leaning straight cisgender folks may frolic in the gardens. Which is sad, because historically and sterotypically, we queers love a lil’ frolic.

The actual trail invites families to explore seven stops, meet characters inspired by Australian plants and collect stamps for a sticker. It draws on Courtney’s book about a wattle discovering a garden full of difference. It encourages kids to celebrate each others differences, rather than think of being different as a negative thing. Y’know, kinda like how Lyle Shelton thinks about us. (Courtney, maybe send him a copy of the book? He could fucking use it.)

This is obviously just another attempt to squeeze more juice for his dwindling relevance out of queer people existing in public, with children wheeled out as the justification for demanding we disappear.

Google Trends shows Shelton’s attention spikes keep falling

The supplied Google Trends chart tracks Australian web searches for “lyle shelton” from 2004 to October 2026. Its tallest peak, reaching the relative maximum of 100, appears around 2017. There are further – but smaller – bursts around 2019, 2021 and 2023, followed by steep falls, with recent interest sitting close to the floor beside those earlier heights.

But obviously, this measures how many people are just searching his name online – it doesn’t necessarily mean the person agrees with him. I’ve had to search his name on Google several times, both as a journalist, but also just as a queer person checking out what bullshittery he’s complaining about now.

Still, the pattern is reassuring: successive bursts of attention have failed to become a permanently elevated audience. He keeps kicking up shit to remain relevant, but he’s not getting the attention he once had; Australians keep moving on.

Those earlier years have familiar baggage. In 2016, Shelton was attacking Safe Schools and debating same-sex marriage on Q&A. The enormous 2017 surge coincides with the marriage equality postal survey, when he was a leading No campaigner linking our right to marry with fears about gender education.

The screenshot cannot pinpoint which headline caused each peak, of course. But it does place his biggest period of search attention alongside a campaign many of us remember painfully well.

Later spikes sit within years of further campaigning and political bids. By 2023, he had targeted rainbow flags, drag storytime and Anthony Albanese attending Mardi Gras. He also failed to win a NSW parliamentary seat that year.

This year brought another parliamentary bid in May, invoking his dispute with Brisbane drag performers and attacking anti-vilification protections. In July, he renewed objections to same-sex parenting and surrogacy. August’s grievance was Rainbow Ready tourism accreditation: businesses welcoming LGBTQIA+ travellers apparently warranted a separate scheme excluding queer promotion.

So much bullshit. No sustained return to those towering search peaks of 2017. He’s trying his damn best to get the attention he got during the marriage equality survey – and guess what? He’s not fuckin’ getting it.

The company we keep can define us, Lyle

That last line was the major point I wanted to bring the LGBTQIA+ community’s attention with this piece – however, the ‘related searches’ also caught my eye.

‘Riccardo Bosi‘ ranks ninth among the displayed top queries and first among rising queries.

Honestly, I had to Google who that was; doing my due diligence obviously. I cackled when I saw that Google’s description first and foremost calls him ‘an Australian conspiracy theorist’ – published research uses that description too.

He is also Leader of Australia One party, but is apparently best known for COVID-19 conspiracy theories (he even called for politicians and other public figures who believed in the so-called “COVID hoax” to be hanged) but also the denial of the Holocaust! What a fun and normal guy to be associated with – the absolute shame I would feel if people thought of him in relation to myself. But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night, Lyle.

Look, yes, Shelton’s rhetoric can hurt, and institutions should stand firm. But – you can exhale. Every major spike has fairly swiftly come back down. This latest noise needn’t own your afternoon.

I will conclude this by simply saying the rallying cry that we developed during the marriage equality postal survey:

Eat shit, Lyle.