Barnaby Joyce has attacked the media for focusing on candidate Katherine Deves’ anti-trans views, despite insisting it wasn’t his place to say if she should be dumped.
A string of reports over the past week have revived several inflammatory comments made by Ms Deves on social media, including one where she likened her lobbying to stop transgender athletes from competing in women’s sport to standing up against the Holocaust.
Ms Deves was hand-picked by a panel including the Prime Minister to be the Liberal candidate for the Sydney seat of Warringah, currently held by independent Zali Steggall, after she ousted Tony Abbott.
The candidate has since apologised and withdrawn her views, but it has quelled calls for her to step aside.
Asked if she should be dumped, the Deputy Prime Minister said it wasn’t his place to say, before he launched into a tirade on the media for not focusing on what “actually matters”.
“If I’m walking in Tamworth or going for a wander around Wagga or talking to people in Stawell in Victoria or Moama, they’re not going ‘oh, well, I’m really worried about Katherine,” he told reporters in Gladstone.
“That’s not in their mind.
“You’ve got to understand in politics, people, there is a difference between what might be a really interesting story among the fourth estate and what actually matters,” he said.
He said his “focus, focus, focus” was on real issues like roads and a burns unit for Gladstone.
It comes as Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar also threw his support behind Ms Deves despite fresh calls for her to be disendorsed.
Speaking with 2GB, Mr Sukkar added his name to the list of government frontbenchers, including Scott Morrison himself, that backed the besieged candidate in.
He added that while he had not “scrutinised” all of her statements, he supported the “basic campaign” that Ms Deves has “led for a long time”.
“Absolutely I support Katherine. Katherine is a highly credentialed individual who’s fighting for the rights of women in sport,” Mr Sukkar said.
“That's an extremely important thing and something that I think has widespread community support.”
The incumbent, independent MP Zali Steggall also ratcheted up the pressure on Mr Morrison for hand picking a candidate with “revolting policies”.
“We need to be very clear she has not distanced herself from the sentiment of those words,” Ms Steggall told ABC Radio National.
She added his pick proved he was “deaf” to her community: “It says a lot for his character.”
On Sunday, Women’s Minister Marise Payne sought to distance herself from Ms Deves’ controversial comments.
While Senator Payne said she did not share her views and noted the Warringah hopeful had apologised and withdrawn her comments she stopped short of insisting she should be disendorsed.
“It’s a matter for the organisation in NSW. I need to get on with my job. That’s what I’m doing. And I don’t agree with the remarks that she made. I’ve made that explicitly clear,” she told ABC’s Insiders.
Joe Ball, the chief executive of LGBTIQA+ support service Switchboard Victoria, said the organisation had experienced an increase in calls after Ms Deves comments were first reported.
He added trans people like himself had been under a “sustained attack” that started with the introduction of Mr Morrison’s religious discrimination bill.
“People absolutely respond to articles in the media. Whether its politiciaxjmtzywns arguing about it, or op eds in national papers, those debates have real consequences for real people when they play out at home, in community centres and in religious organisations,” Mr Ball told ABC’s Radio National.
