“I’ve made that very clear that I believe that girls should play sport against girls and women should play sport against women, but ultimately, as well, we in public as politicians, in the media, have an obligation in these areas of debate to participate in a way that is sensitive, particularly in areas that are incredibly delicate, and there are strong views on either side of the debate.”
On Kean, who has led public calls for Deves to be disendorsed, putting him at odds with the premier, Perrottet said “Matt has a view in relation to the candidate and the positions that she’s taken on things or sorry, I should actually say the way that she has expressed those positions now. I actually agree with Matt on that point”.
Morrison again defended Deves on Wednesday, declaring he wouldn’t allow her to be cancelled.
Scott Morrison and Katherine Deves.Credit:James Brickwood, Supplied
“Women in sport is the issue that Katherine has been highlighting. She’s made a number of remarks in the past, and on a number of occasions, not in the majority, she’s stepped over the line, and she’s acknowledged that,” he said.
“To go forward as a member of parliament, that is something you need to learn … you need to be able to deal with respect for others, to be compassionate in terms of the feelings of others. But what I won’t allow, what I won’t allow, is for those who are seeking to cancel Katherine simply because she has a different view to them on the issue of women and girls in sport.
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“I think Australians are getting pretty fed-up with having to walk on eggshells every day because they may or may not say something one day that’s going to upset someone.”
Perrottet, Morrison and former NSW Liberal Party president Christine McDiven comprised the three-person panel that selected Deves for the Sydney seat of Warringah, a formerly blue-ribbon seat that Tony Abbott lost to Zali Steggall in 2019.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office denied it was the source of the leaked text.
In a statement earlier on Wednesday, Perrottet said he supported a conversation about transgender athletes and women’s sport but warned that insensitively expressed views “should never distract us from the merits of the substantive issue”.
”I agree with most fair-minded Australians that girls and women should be free to play sport against girls and women, particularly where there might otherwise be an unfair advantage – it’s a matter of fairness and physiology,” he said.
The latest leaking of text messages follows a damaging internal war within the Liberal Party over preselections that ultimately was taken to the High Court, with senior party officials fearful about the effect of the delays on the election.
Last year, Morrison’s office was accused of leaking text messages between the prime minister and French President Emmanuel Macron over the scrapped deal to buy French submarines.
That leak followed Macron accusing Morrison of lying to him about whether the French submarine deal would go ahead, days before the AUKUS arrangement to buy nuclear submarines from the US and UK was announced.
Separately, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce accused Morrison of being “a hypocrite and a liar” in a text message sent on to Brittany Higgins a month after the former staffer’s rape claims exploded into the public arena.
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And in a private text message exchange between Gladys Berejiklian and an unnamed Liberal cabinet member leaked earlier this year, the former NSW premier allegedly referred to Morrison as a “complete psycho” and a “horrible, horrible person”.
The latest text message leak appeared on the day Morrison will appear with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese in the first debate of the 2022 election campaign.
The Coalition has sustained weeks of controversy over Deves’ candidacy, which some Liberals believe could damage the chances of North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman and Wentworth MP Dave Sharma who are facing tough challenges from so-called ‘teal’ independents.
Deves has declared she is “not going anywhere” and accused her critics for “vile” bullying.
On Tuesday Morrison again backed his chosen candidate arguing “she is a woman, standing up for women and girls and their access to fair sport in this country”.
“I’m not going to allow her to be silenced, I’m not going to allow her to be pushed aside as the pile-on comes in to try and silence her,” he said in Perth on Tuesday.
Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.
Dominic Perrottet tells colleagues he did not leak Katherine Deves text to Scott Morrison
Source: Philippines Alive
