ACT Greens candidate calls for politicians to be ‘hanged’, brags of drug use

An ACT Greens candidate has admitted to taking MDMA, expressed strident anti-Israel views and called for politicians to be hanged ‘in the street’ in a series of social media posts, placing the far-left party under greater scrutiny.

ACT Greens candidate James Cruz is running in the seat of Kurrajong in the ACT election

The ACT Greens have defended a candidate’s social media posts admitting to taking an illegal drug, expressing strident anti-Israel views and calling for politicians to be hanged “in the street”, saying the remarks were “impassioned” but related to key issues for the minor party.

The party was forced to clarify that their candidate for the seat of Kurrajong, James Cruz, “disavows violence”, after social media posts surfaced in which he said he wanted to “f..king kill politicians” and “send them to The Hague and hang them in the street” over the government’s treatment of asylum seekers.

Mr Cruz also wrote “f..k Israel” and “their genocidal regime” in response to a news article about a woman and baby in Gaza being killed by Israeli forces.

“I don’t give a s..t how many of their occupying forces die when they couldn’t care less about indiscriminately slaughtering civilians, and actively cheer as they die,” he wrote on Facebook in July 2014.

With less than a week remaining before the ACT election, the comments mark the second time Mr Cruz has come under fire for his social media posts in a week.

An ACT Greens spokesman said that while the posts’ tone was “impassioned” and “confronting to some” they reflected the “deep pain” Mr Cruz felt over the deaths of Palestinians and the suffering of refugees.

“The social media posts all relate to issues of concern to the Greens: violence against civilians, corporate accountability, drug harm reduction and people seeking asylum,” the spokesman said.

“The tone of the posts is impassioned and will be confronting to some, as are the issues themselves. Mr Cruz disavows violence and made those comments over deep pain at deaths of innocent ­civilians and the treatment of the refugee community, of which he has family and friends.”

A Canberra Liberals spokesman said Mr Cruz’s comments were “abhorrent” and had “no place in ACT politics”, calling on ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury to come clean on if the party shared the candidates’ views.

“Shane Rattenbury needs to come out publicly and tell Canberrans if these views are shared by the party and if he knew about them before the candidate was preselected,” the spokesman said.

“The ACT Greens have been in a coalition government with Labor and Andrew Barr for the last 12 years and had three members in cabinet this term. It is very concerning that these types of comments and views could make their way into the cabinet room if Andrew Barr does a deal with the Greens again.”

In other posts on X, Mr Cruz said he had “already admitted to taking md”, referring to the drug MDMA, and advocated for the abolition of prisons while also pushing for “banking execs” to be imprisoned.

Mr Cruz also said his party was “literally, unashamedly … going to do all these things” in response to an article about a NSW Greens candidate describing a coward’s punches as “brave” and arguing for fewer police.

The historic posts surfaced just days after Mr Cruz was forced to issue a clarifying statement over a separate post on X in which he ­appeared to suggest Hezbollah should be removed from Australia’s list of proscribed terrorist ­organisations.

Greens sources told The Australian Mr Cruz’s X account was believed to have been hacked and deleted by a third party.

Another Greens candidate Harini Rangarajan came under fire after she reportedly wrote a blog post comparing 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to Jesus Christ. Mr Rattenbury has not disendorsed Ms Rangarajan, who has defended the posts as being a “creative work”.