Turnbull says party should dump Deves over gender comments
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says controversial federal NSW Liberal candidate Katherine Deves should be disendorsed over her remarks about transgender children playing school sport.
His comments come as reported death threats against Deves, standing in the Sydney seat of Warringah, are referred to federal police.
Turnbull told the ABCās Radio National on Tuesday that Devesā comments āseem designed to whip up animosity and hatred against some of the most vulnerable people in our communityā.
He said he found that completely unacceptable and he agreed entirely with NSW Treasurer Matt Kean that Deves should not have been put forward and should be disendorsed.
āBut she is Scott Morrisonās pick,ā Turnbull said.
āThe members of the Liberal Party in New South Wales donāt have any say in pre-selections ā¦ of late, theyāre all in the hands of Mr Morrison.ā
AAP understands Deves spoke to NSW police last week about threats made against her.
It is understood those complaints were then forwarded on to federal police.
The Warringah hopeful, hand-picked by Morrison, has attracted controversy for remarks she made about transgender children playing school sport.
She has apologised for Twitter posts, which have since been deleted, in which she described transgender children as āsurgically mutilated and sterilisedā.
Stay informed, daily
Deves told SBS she had faced death threats and police were involved, also stating her family had to temporarily leave Sydney for their safety.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police said the organisation would not comment on whether the matter was being investigated.
Deves said in the SBS interview she recognised the transgender debate required ādignified and respectfulā discussion rather than divisive and hurtful comments posted to social media.
Morrison told reporters on Sunday before the interview aired that Deves recognised a āsensitive approachā was needed.
But he backed her right to express her views about an issue which was āfundamentally about women and girls in sportā.
Want to see more stories from InDaily Qld in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily Qld as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily Qld". That's it.
