Scott Morrison has continued his absolute rejection of allegations that he racially vilified an opponent for his own personal political gain during a bitter preselection fight in 2007.
The Prime Minister on Monday said he had “dealt with” the allegations “time and time again” in the three days since the dormant controversy over his preselection in the safe Liberal seat of Cook was revived.
Two separate signed statutory declarations from 2016 suggested that Mr Morrison used his opponent Michael Towke’s Lebanese background against him after decisively losing the initial preselection ballot.
Details from those sworn testimonies were aired by The Saturday Paper and The Sydney Morning Herald, including 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 has also denied saying that Mr Towke could not be trusted because of his Lebanese background and on Sunday said he would be willing to sign a statutory declaration of his own to testify the allegations were untrue.
Mr Towke went public over the weekend to back up the claims he had made in one of those statutory declarations, but Mr Morrison continued to reject the allegations on Monday.
“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.”
Mr Morrison said leaders of the Lebanese community had spoken “most significantly” about the matter after several of his allies came out to publicly voice their support for him on Sunday.
The reports 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 restoked the 15-year-old controversy over Mr Morrison’s preselection, raising 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 Lebanesxjmtzywe community have come out and backed the Prime Minister,” Mr Joyce told Channel 7.
“They see this as it is. When you get these accusations right on the eve of an election, they can wrap them up in political hits but it’s not a true reflection of what is the case.
“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”.
