Jacinta Allan expects Victorian ALP review after Peter Dutton meme

Jacinta Allan says she is ‘sure’ the Victorian ALP will be reviewing its processes to ensure a social media attack on Peter and Kirilly Dutton ‘doesn’t happen again’.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: David Crosling/NewsWire

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan says she is “sure” the ALP’s Victorian branch will review its processes to ensure a social media attack that mocked Peter Dutton and his wife Kirilly Dutton “doesn’t happen again”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forced to intervene and order the state branch remove the post, joining the Opposition Leader and a host of other MPs from both the Labor and Liberal parties in condemning the attack.

On Thursday, Ms Allan said she was not aware of how the social media post came about and sought to distance her government from it.

“That account is run independently by the Australian Labor Party’s Victorian branch, it’s not an account that has anything to do with the government,” Ms Allan said.

The social media post was published on Monday.

“It’s appropriate that it’s [the social media post] been removed, and I’m sure the branch will be reviewing their practices to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

“I am firmly of the view that family should be off-limits when it comes to politics.”

Ms Allan said she had not spoken with Victorian Labor state secretary Steve Staikos about the post.

Mr Staikos initially defended the post on Monday, stating that it was “supposed to be a comedic meme”.

Victorian Labor has been under fire from both Labor and Liberal MPs since it posted the meme to the party’s Facebook page on Monday.

The meme, which is based on a five-year-old newspaper report, is captioned “We all know that one couple”.

It has a secondary line that states “Justifying dating your new partner to your friends who don’t like him” above a 2019 newspaper photo quoting Ms Dutton saying of her husband: ‘‘He is not a monster.’’

The original Queensland-based Sunday Mail newspaper front page was headlined “My Pete’s no monster’’.

Former federal Labor leader Bill Shorten said on Wednesday that the post had caused “embarrassment to the whole Labor Party”.

Ms Allan’s office initially declined to comment on Monday but condemned the post on Tuesday evening.

However, on Thursday, Ms Allan denied that she had initially declined to comment.

“That allegation is absolutely incorrect,” she said.

“I was asked to provide a comment and a comment was provided making it absolutely clear that families should be off-limits.”

The Australian has confirmed Ms Allan’s office told this masthead at about 2pm on Monday that Ms Allan would not be commenting and said it was a matter for ALP headquarters.