Liberals resigned to Katherine Deves remaining as Warringah candidate

NSW Liberals say they’re resigned to embattled Katherine Deves remaining the party’s Warringah candidate, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison dug in to support her and declared Australians were “fed up with having to walk on eggshells”.

Ahead of candidate nominations closing at midday on Thursday, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said he had learned “don’t send text messages” after a message he sent Morrison backing Deves was leaked.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has told colleagues he was not the person who leaked text messages between himself and Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Deves has faced calls from within the Liberal Party, led by NSW Liberal Treasurer Matt Kean, to stand aside because of her views on transgender people and women’s sports, and for inflammatory past comments on the issue that have invoked Nazism and the stolen generation.

But Morrison locked in behind the candidate, despite an internal push to remove her, and said on Wednesday he wouldn’t allow her to be cancelled.

“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.

“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.”

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age spoke to five Liberal MPs at state and federal level on Wednesday, who asked not to be named so they could discuss internal party matters, and all expected Deves would not be removed from the Liberal ticket before nominations closed.

Perrottet defended Kean for intervening in the dispute while dismissing suggestions he had white-anted the federal campaign.

In the leaked text, Perrottet expressed support to Morrison over the issue of transgender women competing in women’s sport and said that Morrison’s approach was backed by a majority of Australians.

This masthead has confirmed Perrottet told colleagues he was not the source of the leaked text between him and the prime minister and that he believed the issue of transgender athletes needed to be handled very sensitively.

Scott Morrison and Katherine Deves.Credit: James Brickwood, Supplied

On Wednesday, Perrottet said he didn’t know who had leaked the text exchange. A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office denied it was the source of the leaked text.

“I’m not getting into a discussion on text messages again. Text messages don’t seem to go away but the moral is don’t send text messages in a modern world,” Perrottet said, while confirming the content of his exchange with Morrison.

“My position is very clear ... as I have said to Scott, on the substantial aspect, the substantive nature of this issue, I agree with him,” he said.

“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”.

Some in the Coalition believe Deves’ candidacy risks the chances of North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman and Wentworth MP Dave Sharma holding their seats against so-called ‘teal’ independents.

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.

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.

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.

Deves has declared she is “not going anywhere” and accused her critics for “vile” bullying.

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