Election 2022: Gender posts have Scott Morrison backing away

The Liberal candidate for Warringah and co-founder of Save Women’s Sport Katherine Deves has apologised for the ‘language used’ in comments about trans women.

Katherine Deves at home in Sydney’s north. Picture: Nikki Short

The Liberal candidate for Warringah said the review triggered by Brittany Higgins’s allegations of rape presented an opportunity to campaign for the “biological definitions” of a man and a woman to be restored in the Sex Discrimination Act.

Scott Morrison moved to distance himself from Katherine Deves on Wednesday after it emerged she’d described transgender children as “mutilated and sterilised” in social media posts.

The Prime Minister said he had no knowledge of Ms Deves’s comments and said the government would not support Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler’s private member’s bill that would ban transgender athletes from competing in women and girls sports.

“The government does not have any plans for that to be a government bill,” he said.

On Monday, Mr Morrison said Ms Deves, one of his nine captain’s pick candidates, had been “outspoken and brave on these ­issues”.

Ms Deves, a lawyer running to unseat incumbent independent MP Zali Steggall, is a co-founder of Save Women’s Sport Austra­lasia, which wants to prevent transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The Warringah candidate has long advocated for the definitions of man and woman to be ­reinserted in the Sex Discrimination Act after the legislation was amended in 2013 to ensure anti-discrimin­ation legislation covered transgender people.

Ms Deves discussed ways to have the “biological definition” of man and woman restored to the legislation in a videoed discussion with fellow member of Save Women’s Sport Australia Ro Edge and the founder of Save Women’s Sports, Beth Stelzer.

Ms Deves said a review being under taken by Sex Discrimin­ation Commissioner Kate Jenkins, triggered when former Liberal staffer Ms Higgins went public with allegations she’d been raped by a colleague, presented a good opportunity to restore the definitions in the legislation.

“There are moves afoot to make amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act because of the scandals that have been coming out of our federal parliament in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace,” she said in the video uploaded to YouTube on May 13, 2021. “There’s a young staffer who alleges she was raped by another staffer and that higher-ups knew and so on. So they want to make some amendments so this actually might be an ­opportunity for us to campaign to have those biological definitions reinserted and also to have further protections for sports.”

The Australian is not suggesting any allegations are true, only that they have been made.

Amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act passed in ­September last year included recommendations handed down by the inquiry into sexual harassment in workplaces, which did not investigate parliamentary culture. A separate review that ­investigated parliamentary workplace culture did not inform the legislation.

Ms Deves deactivated her ­social media and apologised on Wednesday for her social media comments.

“My advocacy for the rights and safety of women and girls is well known, and I stand by my ­desire to ensure we protect the safety of women and girls and our entire community,” she said in a statement.