The firm imported Asian furniture and onsold it to retailers like Harvey Norman, but financial troubles resulted in the Australian Taxation Office issuing wind-up orders in 2012, leaving creditors and employees owed over $4 million.

[18][23] The then Leader of the House, Anthony Albanese, alleged Kelly failed to disclose his directorship of three entities which he had not officially relinquished until March 2011, eight months after the 2010 election.

[24] Kelly and the President of the NSW Commandos Association, Barry Grant, fought Labor government cuts in the 2012 budget to entitlements for defence personnel to travel home during holiday times.

[25] In 2013, Kelly was nominated by then Opposition leader Tony Abbott as the representative of the Coalition on the bipartisan committee overseeing the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

[14] In April 2014, Kelly spoke at an event commemorating the establishment in 1941 of the Independent State of Croatia, which was associated with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

[28] Kelly subsequently described the speech he gave as condemning fascism and communism, and apologised for appearing to endorse the flag of the Independent State of Croatia.

[14] Speaking in relation to his position as chairman of the Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, Kelly proposed that signs at Mildura should warn drivers of an increased risk of car theft in the town.

[46] On 18 July 2018, Kelly commented on Sky News, in response to a Facebook post by the father of three children killed aboard MH17: 'if some of the things that Russia has gotten away with in the past has to be slightly looked over, well I'm sorry that's the price that we have to pay sometimes to have good relations going forward'.

[50] Kelly criticised Julia Banks' decision to retire following the spill in a Sky News interview, defending politics as a "rough-and-tumble game.

[58] Morrison reportedly floated using state executive powers to save Kelly from a pre-selection challenge, taking the decision-making process away from grassroots members.

[60] When the government moved to head off a dispute by using state executive powers to automatically endorse sitting members, Turnbull launched a failed intervention to prevent the outcome, hoping Kelly, a Dutton backer, would be ousted.

[66] In October 2018, Kelly suggested that the fuel excise should be reduced by 10 cents per litre,[67] and that divestiture powers should apply to the petrol industry.

He achieves higher levels of engagement than either the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader by selectively reinforcing the conservative opinions of his followers.

[76] Kelly was set to face a preselection contest in Hughes,[77] but in February 2021 he resigned from the Liberal Party and sat on the crossbench as an independent.

[92] In November 2021, Kelly was ‘awarded’ in absentia the ‘Bent Spoon’ award by organisation the Australian Skeptics ‘for spreading misinformation about Covid and vaccinations.’[93] Kelly charged taxpayers for flights and the use of Comcar (a government car service) to attend anti-vaccine mandate and anti-lockdown protests in Melbourne in November and December 2021, and was investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority as to whether it was an appropriate use of taxpayer funds.

[95] In December 2021 Kelly, who has been permanently banned from Facebook, was nominated by the crossbench and appointed to a parliamentary committee looking into social media and online safety, along with two Opposition MPs.

[10] In the aftermath of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol by pro-Donald Trump rioters, Kelly shared a debunked Washington Times article that falsely claimed facial-recognition technology had recognized members of antifa among the attackers.

Kelly commented that "neo-fascists and Marxists had engaged in a highly co-ordinated 'false flag' operation, by infiltrating the protest and invading the capital so that the world’s media would falsely blame and discredit Trump supporters.

[131] Kelly has also given a speech in parliament supporting his views on hydroxychloroquine, and posted on his Facebook page a call for the deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth, to resign, which he later removed.

[138] Royal Australian College of General Practitioners President Karen Price criticised Kelly for his 2021 appearance on a podcast with Pete Evans, who "spread[s] alarming misinformation, including content linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory and COVID-19 denialist claims".

[144] Kelly had been lobbying Minister for Health and Aged Care Greg Hunt and the head of the TGA to try to influence their recommendations to the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, ceasing only when his correspondence was subject to freedom of information applications.

He has previously written that convict arrivals to Australia in the 18th century found the weather warmer than in recent years,[157] and has invited climate deniers from the Institute of Public Affairs to present to the government prior to the Paris Agreement.

[158] Kelly advocates for a "hockey-stick" approach to meeting the Paris 2030 emissions target for the energy industry, which has been characterised as delaying action to the last possible moment.

In a speech in parliament he criticised the use of federal funds to obtain wind power of "questionable reliability" in favour of spending on other critical social needs.

[167] Other confirmed members of the forum include Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews, Barnaby Joyce, George Christensen, and Ian Goodenough.

[170] Kelly also began the Parliamentary Friends of Coal Exports, which was joined by Joel Fitzgibbon, Mike Freelander, Meryl Swanson, Milton Dick, George Christensen, Kevin Andrews and Phillip Thompson.

[172] In September 2018, speaking at a Liberal Party function, Kelly stated that the Pacific island of Tuvalu was growing, not sinking, as evidence in favour of his climate scepticism.

[174] In January 2020, he was heavily criticised through global media for an appearance on UK television, in which he denied climate change was a contributing factor to the 2019–20 Australian bushfires.

Kelly was further criticised for racism and misogyny after referring to meteorologist Laura Tobin as an "ignorant pommy weather girl" who had "no idea what she's talking about", despite her university degree in physics and meteorology.

[179] Kelly supports Advance Australia's attempts to introduce educational materials to schools that falsely describe climate change as a hoax.