NSW Treasurer Matt Kean denies white-anting PM and Premier

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has sensationally denied undermining Scott Morrison and Dominic Perrottet over the party’s Warringah candidate Katherine Deves, just days after calling for the party to dump her.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has sensationally denied he is undermining Scott Morrison and Dominic Perrottet over the party’s Warringah candidate Katherine Deves, just days after calling for the party to dump her.

The Treasurer appeared to back away from demands made in the media last week demanding the Liberal Party disendorse Ms Deves over comments made regarding transwomen in sport.

Talking to Ben Fordham on 2GB on Wednesday morning, Mr Kean doubled down on his comments that Ms Deves’ language was “not acceptable”, but stopped short of echoing his earlier calls that she should be dumped.

The senior NSW Liberal also claimed that he and Premier Dominic Perrottet “are in absolute agreement that these comments are abhorrent”, despite the Premier’s comments in The Daily Telegraph today that “an insensitively expressed view should never distract us from the merits of the substantive issue”.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean denies he’s white-anting the PM and Premier.

“The last thing I’m doing is undermining the Prime Minister or the Premier,” Mr Kean said on Wednesday.

When asked by Mr Fordham why he took “the extreme step in the middle of a federal election campaign of campaigning against an endorsed Liberal candidate”, Mr Kean said he “made no apology for respecting the pain and trauma that people who survived the Holocaust”.

Matt Kean has sensationally denied he is

“undermining” Scott Morrison and Dominic Perrottet

Matt Kean doubled down on his comments that Katherine Deves’ language was “not acceptable”. Picture: Supplied

Ms Deves last year told a podcast she felt her “Save Women’s Sport” campaign was comparable to the French resistance to Nazi occupation.

“What I’m saying then is that the use of this overblown language whether it be about Nazis or the Holocaust, or comparing people in marginalised groups to being autistic is not appropriate,” Mr Kean said of the comments.

But Mr Fordham hit back, accusing Mr Kean of “throwing her under the bus on Twitter” instead of “contacting her, instead of giving her some advice as an experienced politician”.

“And now you want her disendorsed...why don’t you back off?” Mr Fordham said.

Fordham yesterday launched a bitter attack on the minister, saying his call to disendorse Ms Deves was out of “hate” for the PM.

“He hates Scott Morrison so much, he wants to do everything he can to tie up Scott Morrison’s shoe laces, just before he’s about to run out on the field and fight an election campaign,” Fordham said.

“He’s doing his best to unsettle the Liberal candidate in Warringah and saying she should be disendorsed”.