Greens candidate Tom Raue joked about deadly coward punch attack, calling it ‘brave’

After a Sydney teenager was killed in a brutal coward punch attack, a Greens candidate joked the act was brave and “takes a lot of guts”.

Just days after Daniel Christie’s family switched off his life support following a brutal coward punch attack that left him brain dead, a Greens candidate described the horrific attack that led to his death as “brave”.

In early 2014, in response to the 18-year-old’s tragic death after being hit from behind in Kings Cross on New Year’s Eve, Tom Raue took to Twitter to make the sickening remarks.

“Going to punch somebody out of the blue is stupid and awful but it takes a lot of guts. I’d call it a brave punch,” Mr Raue wrote on January 23.

The union staffer and candidate for the Greens, later deleted the post, but now as he’s campaigning for the New South Wales seat of Summer Hill in the upcoming state election, it’s come back to haunt him.

Daniel Christie was just 18 when he died after a coward punch attack in Kings Cross.

Daniel Christie’s death sparked major reforms in a bid to end violence in night spots.

Daniel’s death sparked urgent calls for action in Sydney’s night-time hot spots and led to the introduction of the contentious lockout laws.

It was just six months after Thomas Kelly, also 18, was killed in a coward punch attack in the same spot.

Mr Raue today told news.com.au the comment was a “foolish, off the hand remark and I apologise for that”.

Tom Raue took to Twitter in the wake of Daniel Christie’s death to describe coward punch attacks as “brave”.

“It was a five-year-old tweet and I deleted it some time ago. I did describe king hits as stupid and awful, I stand by that.”

The newspaper also pointed to a column penned by Mr Raue in 2012 for a student newspaper in which he advocated for humans having “consensual sex with animals” to be legalised.

Mr Raue told The Daily Telegraph that it was “clearly a joke”.

The ‘joke’ tweet from Greens candidate for Summer Hill, Tom Raue.

Jeremy Buckingham, who quit the NSW Greens last year amid sexual harassment allegations and demands from his party that he step down, and now sits as an independent, slammed the tweet.

“Tom Raue is unfit and should be disendorsed,” Mr Buckingham wrote in a Twitter post.

He also called on federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale to intervene in the matter.

“This is why I left and you can’t vote for the Greens,” he added.

Mr Buckingham described the candidate as part of the “extreme left faction that now controls the NSW Greens”.

Greens leader @ShoebridgeMLC staffer and election candidate calls coward punch that kills young man “brave”. Tom Raue is unfit and should be disendorsed @RichardDiNatale should step in. pic.twitter.com/rymh1R6nd7

— Jeremy Buckingham 🌏 (@greensjeremy) March 12, 2019

News.com.au has approached Mr Raue for comment.

His is campaigning in the March 23 poll on a platform of affordable housing, clean energy and decriminalising the drug MDMA.

Labor holds Summer Hill on a margin of more than 10 per cent.

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