Dutton says Albanese ‘trashing his own credibility’ defending fake Nazi meme candidate

Peter Dutton has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of “trashing his own credibility” by defending the Labor candidate running in Dutton’s own Queensland seat of Dickson, after it emerged she tweeted faked images in 2017 of the opposition leader wearing a Nazi uniform.

Albanese suggested many Australians had posted things they later regretted, as he declined to condemn Ali France, who is trying to unseat Dutton at the third successive election in the Brisbane seat of Dickson, and instead called her “an extraordinary person”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Labor candidate Ali France in Murrumba Downs, in the Queensland seat of Dickson, last month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“So I guess this is the standard that the prime minister is willing to accept and it says a lot about the prime minister,” Dutton said in an interview on the LiSTNR podcast The Briefing, hosted by Natarsha Belling.

Dutton also said that “the Labor candidate in Dickson is not fit to hold public office … People can make mistakes, I don’t believe this is a one-off circumstance and follows a pattern of conduct for a long period of time.”

First reported by news.com.au on Thursday morning, France in 2017 shared a post containing a doctored image depicting Dutton and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as Nazis, while in another post she suggested the Coalition planned cuts to the NDIS to pay for AUKUS submarines.

“What [Dutton’s] saying here is that disabled people should fund the AUKUS submarines by going without essential support,” she said in the post. “And some say he’s not a monster!”

She branded Israel an “openly racist apartheid regime” in a separate post on X when it was Twitter.

Ali France retweeted this faked image of Peter Dutton in 2017.Credit: Twitter

Albanese has campaigned alongside France in Dickson, which Dutton holds on a margin of just 1.7 per cent, making it one of the most marginal seats in the country.

“Ali France is an extraordinary Australian and I don’t know what your tweets are like more than a decade ago,” Albanese said when asked about the unearthed tweets at a press conference in Perth.

Describing France, whose leg was amputated after a car accident, as an “outstanding human being”, Albanese said: “She’s someone who has overcome extraordinary adversity during this time.”

Executive Council of Jewry CO-CEO Alex Ryvchin said France should clarify her position.

“While the absurd comments about Israel and grossly offensive Nazi comparisons were made a long time ago, the candidate should clarify her position,” he said.

“Electors have a right to know whether she still holds such flippant views about Nazism and takes hard-left Greens positions on Israel or now aligns with her own party.”

France, who first stood against Dutton in 2019, still has some of these posts visible on her X account. Potential Labor candidates’ social media posts are typically closely audited for controversial content before they start campaigning.

In a statement, France said she had reflected on the posts.

“I should have chosen my words more carefully in the past,” she said.

During an appearance at a breakfast event hosted The West Australian, Albanese was asked to name his worst event of the campaign so far.

Albanese initially denied he fell off the stage.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Probably falling off the stage,” Albanese replied, referring to a widely shared incident in Cessnock in the first week of the campaign.

His comments were a turnaround from his initial remarks after the event when he said: “I didn’t fall off the stage.”

The Coalition has used the denial in its election advertisements to question his character and portray Albanese as being loose with the truth.

Asked to expand on his comments at a subsequent press conference, Albanese snapped back: “It was a joke, chill out.”

He then went on to say “I didn’t fall on my backside” in a back and forth with a reporter before stating: “I stumbled. That’s what happened. I laughed about it at the time … it’s no big deal.”

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