PM backtracks after racial vilification claims
Scott Morrison appears to have backtracked after he said he would sign a statutory declaration denying he racially vilified a political foe.
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Scott Morrison appears to have backtracked after he said he would “of course” be willing to sign a statutory declaration denying allegations he racially vilified his competitor in their battle for preselection.
Reports of two separate signed statutory declarations from 2016 suggested the Prime Minister used his opponent Michael Towke’s Lebanese background against him to win the right to contest the seat of Cook for the Liberal Party in 2007.
The details of the statutory declarations were reported at the weekend, generating a storm of controversy that sent Mr Morrison and his team into damage control.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he could “put the matter to rest” after leaders of the Lebanese Australian community joined his allies on Sunday in publicly rejecting the accusations.
Pressed on the matter by reporters in Melbourne, Mr Morrison said the only reason he would be required to sign a statutory declaration is if a court ordered him to do so.
Only a day earlier, Mr Morrison had said “yes, of course” when he was asked if he was willing to sign a statutory declaration of his own, rejecting the allegations over his preselection.
Mr Morrison ultimately won the right to contest the seat of Cook for the Liberal Party, which he has held since the 2007 election.
Mr Towke on Monday told Channel 10 Mr Morrison was a “liar” who “certainly had used race in the past on several occasions” and didn’t deserve to be prime minister.
Mr Towke had gone public over the weekend to back up the claims he had made in one of the statutory declarations aired in the media, which he signed in 2016.
Claims made in those sworn testimonies, published in The Saturday Paper and The Sydney Morning Herald, include 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 allegedly said at the time Mr Towke could not be trusted because of his Lebanese background, according to the reported claims.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he had “dealt with” the allegations in the three days since the dormant controversy over his preselection in the safe Liberal seat of Cook was revived.
“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.”
The 15-year-old controversy over Mr Morrison’s preselection was re-stoked by incendiary claims outgoing veteran Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells made in Parliament on Tuesday.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells attacked Mr Morrison, calling him an “autocrat” and a “bully” and claiming he had interfered in the Cook preselection contest after he decisively lost the initial preselection ballot to Mr Towke.“Morrison might profess to be Christian, but there was nothing Christian about what was done to Michael Towke,” she told the Senate.
“I am advised that there are several statutory declarations to attest to racial comments made by Morrison at the time that we can’t have a Lebanese person in Cook.”
Senator Fierravanti-Wells has been relegated to an unwinnable spot on the NSW Liberal Party senate ticket after her own contested preselection battle.
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