Liberal hopeful Matthew Squires axed for gay hate posts
The NSW Liberal Party’s Wyong candidate compared ‘homosexuality activists’ to ‘Palestinian terrorists’ claiming both are ‘serving evil ideologies’.
The Liberal Party’s Wyong candidate has been disendorsed after his extensive history of homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-vax comments online was raised, including comparing “homosexuality activists” to “Palestinian terrorists” saying both are “serving evil ideologies”.
More than seven hours after a spokesman for Liberal HQ said the party was investigating Matthew Squires’ string of incendiary social media posts, first raised by The Australian, the office of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet confirmed the recently announced candidate had been dumped.
In a statement, Mr Perrottet said: “Those comments are completely unacceptable and I support the action taken by the Party.”
A spokesman for the NSW Liberal HQ said: “The NSW Liberal Party expects high standards from our candidates. The comments made by the candidate for Wyong are offensive and unacceptable. Having failed to make appropriate disclosures to the party during the nomination process he had been disendorsed.”
Matthew Squires, who works in business development for a host of healthcare companies, was only confirmed as the Liberal candidate for the safe Labor-held seat on the Central Coast on March 6, days before the NSW Electoral Commission closed nominations ahead of the looming state election.
A prodigious commenter on the Facebook group Australian Liberty Forum, a forum of libertarians, in response to one post about a push to ban gay conversion therapy in 2019, Mr Squires said: “Some ppl (sic) are always going to recognise homosexuality for what it is – perversion”.
In another Facebook post from May 2021, Mr Squires said: “The homosexuality activists and the Palestinian terrorists are aligned because they are both serving evil ideologies. Some of you are sympathetic to both cause (sic) because you are too! Great way to test yourself.”
In another post from 2018, Mr Squires compares incest and necrophilia to homosexuality.
“Incest and necrophilia affect us all because it severely degrades our common humanity. Legal restrictions limit (just like sodomy laws used to limit homosexuality),” he said.
After the 2017 London Bridge Attack, Mr Squire wrote: “#islam will always beget #terror – real leadership needed to respond and fight.”
In response to questions from The Australian, Mr Squires’ confirmed the comments were his own. Despite being asked repeatedly, he would not say whether he still held the views.
In response to another post on the ALF questioning whether the policies of former prime minister Scott Morrison were reflective of the tenets of Christian teaching, Mr Squires said the Uniting Church was “now a secular courtyard of useful idiots”.
A self-described “healthcare leader” who began his career as a radiation therapist in Newcastle, Mr Squires has veered into conspiratorial comments and memes about the global Covid vaccination program.
“The Left: Is it strange that my interests align with corporate media, big tech, government, the wealthy elite and big pharma?,” Mr Squires posted in a meme. “No, that’s just a coincidence.”
Despite internal claims the NSW Liberal Party’s vetting processes had been reinforced, Mr Squires’ long history of offensive comments – most still publicly available online – raises questions about if party officials had even run a basic check of his social media.
Mr Squires’ also espouses climate change conspiracies, saying in one post that society needs to accept policies aimed at limiting global warming are in fact efforts to redistribute “the world’s wealth”.
“Both parties need to accept that the weather changes and move on. No need for excuses to take our $$ or global socialism,” he wrote in 2019.
The seat of Wyong is held by David Harris, the opposition spokesman for aboriginal affairs, on a safe buffer of 13 per cent.
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