Stephanie Banister compared with Sarah Palin as gaffe-ridden interview makes headlines around the world Has Australia found its Sarah Palin? Despite international headlines calling One Nation candidate Stephanie Banister, 'Australia's Sarah Palin', her party doesn't believe she needs media training. She said she had been branded a "stand-up criminal" and "stupid moron" by the media. Now aspiring politician Stephanie Banister can add "Australia's Sarah Palin" to the list of undesirable tags she has attracted this week. Following a gaffe-laden interview with Channel Seven on Wednesday night, the One Nation candidate for the Queensland seat of Rankin has been catapulted to the world stage and ridiculed by international TV channels and news websites. Got her facts mixed up: Stephanie Banister. Footage of the interview, in which she calls Islam a country and mistakes haram for the Koran, made it to the US and UK editions of the Huffington Post, several UK news sites including The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent and as far afield as the East African news portal, In2EastAfrica. "Is this Australia's answer to Sarah Palin?" asked The Daily Mail, drawing comparisons with a similarly disastrous interview given by the former Alaskan governor and former US vice-presidential candidate, in which she was unable to name a single newspaper she read and cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as an example of her foreign policy credentials. Ms Palin was pilloried in the US media during the 2008 presidential race and achieved notoriety not only for her frequent missteps but for her ultra-conservative views on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, guns and capital punishment. Sarah Palin: Stephanie Banister has been compared to her. In one speech to US soldiers, she called Afghanistan "our neighbouring country" and in another, she said polls were "for strippers and cross-country skiers." The similarities between Ms Palin and Ms Banister were not lost on the Huffington Post, which posted footage of the interview, asking its readers: "Could this be Australia's Sarah Palin?" Ms Banister, who is also facing criminal charges for allegedly placing anti-Muslim stickers on products in a supermarket, mistook Islam for a country and told Channel Seven that "their laws" should not be allowed in Australia. "I don't oppose Islam as a country, umm, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia," she said. She also claimed 2 per cent of Australians "follow haram," presumably referring to the Islamic holy text, the Koran, and not the Muslim term for something that is forbidden. The Independent said that Banister's interview was among the worst ever, describing it as "catastrophic." "As car-crash political interviews go, it must surely be among the worst," the story read. The Daily Mail called it "embarrassing" and ignorant while the Huffington Post said it was "cringe-worthy" and "horrible." On Thursday, Ms Banister told Fairfax Media she felt she had been misrepresented and had corrected herself many times but it had been cut from the interview. One Nation spokesman Rod Evans said the international coverage was "a little bit over the top" and Ms Banister was "upset of course." He said she would have a minder with her during future interviews. "The intention is to have a party person next to her to give her a boost of confidence ... because her comments have been misconstrued," he said. Ms Banister wasn't the only gaffe-prone Australian politician making international headlines. Queensland state MP Peter Dowling, who was caught out sexting a photo of his penis in a glass of red wine, featured on The Daily Mail and the Huffington Post sites with comparisons being made with the sexting New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. with Amanda Hoh