Andrew Barr defends power sharing agreement, after Greens candidate ‘incites violence’
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has defended Labor’s power-sharing arrangement with the Greens, after a minor party candidate shared social media posts calling for politicians to be hanged ‘in the street’.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has defended Labor’s power-sharing arrangement with the Greens while calling on the minor party to renounce political violence, after it emerged a candidate for the minor party shared social media posts calling for politicians to be hanged “in the street”.
Mr Barr on Tuesday sought to distance the Greens ministers within the coalition government he leads from Kurrajong candidate James Cruz, arguing there was a difference between the left-wing party’s “professional” and “support candidates”.
Less than a week before the ACT, in which he is seeking a historic fourth term, Mr Barr called for Mr Cruz’s “extreme” and “hateful” posts to be taken down, a “fulsome apology” issued and clarification that “inciting political violence has no place in Australian democracy”.
The ACT Greens defended Mr Cruz’s posts – in which he said he wanted to “f..king kill politicians”, admitted to taking an illegal drug and wrote “f..k Israel” and “their genocidal regime” – as being merely “impassioned” and related to the party’s key issues.
Mr Barr said while most of the Greens “pursue peaceful democratic means” to express their political views, there were some individuals who “take it too far”.
ACT Labor has been in a power-sharing agreement with the Greens since 2008, when the party failed to reach the numbers required to hold majority government in the 25-seat Legislative Assembly. “What we are seeing is, I think there is a difference between their more experienced, if you like, professional politicians, and some of their support candidates,” Mr Barr said.
“We’re seeing it in the Greens party, we’re seeing it in the Liberal Party, we’re seeing it across some of the independent candidates as well. The heat of an election campaign certainly flushes out all of these views.”
Federal Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh, who represents the federal Canberra electorate of Fraser, said the comments would not be tolerated from Labor or Liberal candidates.
“I think the Greens certainly need to answer for all of their candidates,” he told Canberra radio station 2CC.
At a press conference where he outlined his pitch to revitalise Canberra, Mr Barr said that while he did not believe Mr Cruz would be elected to the Legislative Assembly, the posts spoke to the “values” of the Greens party.
Mr Barr raised concerns the “hateful and risky” statements could provoke real-world consequences, saying it only took “one person to misinterpret them and we could have a tragedy”.
“We are seeing, in other Australian cities, some quite significant political violence occurring,” he said. “We don’t want that in Canberra. “I’m calling for calm at this point in time. Take down the statements, apologise and let’s have no more incitement of political violence in our democracy.”
More Coverage
Buying into trouble: PM’s political judgment on a cliff edge
Anthony Albanese has been forced to deny he is contemplating life after politics just months before an election campaign, after paying $4.3m for a clifftop house on the NSW central coast where he will live with future wife Jodie Haydon.
Mood brightens on interest rates outlook
Voters are shedding some of their pessimism over the economy, but the more upbeat mood seems to have been overwhelmingly driven by growing hopes that the Reserve Bank could soon cut interest rates rather than Labor’s latest tranche of cost-of-living relief.