‘I admire her’: Abbott backs embattled Deves to remain as candidate

Former prime minister and ex-Warringah MP Tony Abbott has called on the Liberal Party to stick with its embattled candidate for the northern beaches electorate, praising Katherine Deves as a “tough, brave person” and denouncing criticism of her as a “pile on”.

Deves has taken counsel from senior party figures in recent days as a furore grows over her Warringah candidacy following several reports of comments she has made about transgender children and LGBTQ issues.

Tony Abbott has strongly backed embattled Liberal candidate Katherine Deves in his former seat of Warringah.Credit: Composite

Most Liberals regard Warringah as unwinnable at this election, but some moderates are concerned Deves’ views will damage Liberal campaigns in seats such as Wentworth, North Sydney, Goldstein and Kooyong, where Liberal MPs are being challenged by independents.

However, one moderate party figure said on Friday the Warringah constituents he had spoken to mostly agreed with Deves that trans women should not be able to participate in women’s sport.

Mr Abbott, the former member for Warringah who lost to independent Zali Steggall at the last election, told the Herald the Liberal Party should “of course” stick with Deves.

“She’s a tough, brave person who’s standing up for the rights of women and girls, for fairness in sport,” he said. “I very much admire her and can’t understand the pile on from people who claim to be supporters of women’s rights.”

Deves was a so-called “captain’s pick”, installed by a committee comprised of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and former party president Chris McDiven after the NSW division failed to preselect candidates through the usual process. A spokesman for the Prime Minister and a NSW Liberal Party spokesman both declined to comment on the procedure for vetting Deves.

Steggall has called for Deves to be disendorsed, saying her continued candidacy reflected poorly on Morrison. “He made an appalling captain’s call and now should correct it by demonstrating some integrity and sacking her as a candidate,” Steggall said earlier in the week.

Deves runs a lobby group, Save Women’s Sport, which is opposed to the inclusion of trans women in women’s sport. She deleted her Twitter account but old tweets resurfaced in which she called trans children “surgically mutilated and sterilised” and said she was triggered by the rainbow flag.

In another tweet, Deves claimed “half of all males with trans identities are sex offenders”, which Equality Australia chief Anna Brown said was misinformation. In a video last year, Deves compared her activism to the resistance against the Nazis, and on a now-deleted website, said the LGBTQ support initiative Wear It Purple Day was a “grooming tactic” used by “gender extremists”.

When these communications surfaced, Deves apologised for her “language” and the hurt caused by it, but said she stood by her campaign to “fight for the safety of girls and women”.

Deves originally nominated for preselection for Warringah through the NSW division in January, but was rejected three days later as she had not been a member of the Liberal Party for the preceding six months (her application to rejoin was only accepted in December).

However, in February she wrote to the state executive asking for special dispensation to nominate as a candidate anyway. A preselection was never held through the NSW division and the three-person committee installed Deves as a captain’s pick in early April.