Scott Morrison appears to have backtracked after he said he would “of course” be willing to sign a statutory declaration denying allegations he racially vilified his competitor in their battle for preselection.
Reports of two separate signed statutory declarations from 2016 suggested the Prime Minister used his opponent Michael Towke’s Lebanese background against him to win the right to contest the seat of Cook for the Liberal Party in 2007.
The details of the statutory declarations were reported at the weekend, generating a storm of controversy that sent Mr Morrison and his team into damage control.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he could “put the matter to rest” after leaders of the Lebanese Australian community joined his allies on Sunday in publicly rejecting the accusations.
Pressed on the matter by reporters in Melbourne, Mr Morrison saixjmtzywd the only reason he would be required to sign a statutory declaration is if a court ordered him to do so.
Only a day earlier, Mr Morrison had said “yes, of course” when he was asked if he was willing to sign a statutory declaration of his own, rejecting the allegations over his preselection.
Mr Morrison ultimately won the right to contest the seat of Cook for the Liberal Party, which he has held since the 2007 election.
Mr Towke on Monday told Channel 10 Mr Morrison was a “liar” who “certainly had used race in the past on several occasions” and didn’t deserve to be prime minister.
Mr Towke had gone public over the weekend to back up the claims he had made in one of the statutory declarations aired in the media, which he signed in 2016.
Claims made in those sworn testimonies, published in The Saturday Paper and The Sydney Morning Herald, include that Mr Morrison warned party members in 2007 that the Liberals could lose Cook because voters would think Mr Towke was a Muslim.
Mr Morrison allegedly said at the time Mr Towke could not be trusted because of his Lebanese background, according to the reported claims.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he had “dealt with” the allegations in the three days since the dormant controversy over his preselection in the safe Liberal seat of Cook was revived.
“I think I’ve been very clear. I absolutely reject that as malicious slurs,” he told journalists in Melbourne.
“It’s outrageous, absolutely outrageous. I’ve dealt with it time and again.”
The allegations follow an attack on Mr Morrison’s character from outgoing Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who used parliamentary privilege to call him an “autocrat” and “bully” who was “unfit to be prime minister”.
It was in that same Senate speech that Senator Fierravanti-Wells re-stoked the 15-year-old controversy over Mr Morrison’s preselection, raising both the statutory declarations and Mr Towke’s alleged mistreatment.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells had been relegated to an unwinnable spot on the NSW Liberal Party Senate ticket after losing her own contested preselection battle.
Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who appeared in Brisbane alongside federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese on Monday morning, was asked to weigh in on the matter of Mr Morrison’s character.
Asked if she had found Mr Morrison to be a “bully” during national cabinet meetings, Ms Palaszczuk responded: “I’m not going to discuss national cabinet deliberations.”
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce slammed the allegations as a “political hit” on the eve of an election and defended Mr Morrison.
“The Lebanese community have come out and backed the Prime Minister,” Mr Joyce told Channel 7.
“If this is the honest view, then they could have litigated this years ago. If you’re going to call someone a racist and they’re not, you’re using racism as a weapon.”
Both the Saturday Paper and the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mr Towke had been told by the two people who signed the statutory declarations that Mr Morrison was “adamant and explicit” that in the wake of the Cronulla riots a candidate of Lebanese heritage “could not hold the seat of Cook”.
