Katherine Deves hits back at Liberals over homophobia claims

Former Liberal candidate Katherine Deves has hit out at colleagues who opposed her bid for Warringah, calling Matt Kean and Andrew Bragg ‘mavericks’ who threatened party unity.

Former Liberal candidate for Warringah Katherine Deves has hit back at colleagues from the left of the party and those who accused her of homophobia, saying she has longstanding friendships with many gay men.

Ms Deves, a captain’s pick by Scott Morrison at the May election, rose to prominence on a proposed policy to ban transgender athletes from women’s sport but was slammed by fellow Liberals Matt Kean and Andrew Bragg for comments that compared her fight to the plight of Germans who resisted the ­Holocaust.

“These kinds of horrendous views are not OK, and I’m sure the voters of Warringah agree,” Mr Kean said at the time, calling for Ms Deves’ disendorsement.

Former Liberal candidate Katherine Deves has hit out at colleagues who accused her of intolerance, saying she has friendships with a number of gay men.

Senator Bragg called her views “very regrettable, undignified and hurtful”.

Likening herself to Pauline Hanson – also a former Liberal candidate – Ms Deves accused her former colleagues of infighting at a time when the party needed unity. “Those mavericks chose to put their own profiles and priorities above those of the collective,” she wrote in an op-ed for Sky News on Thursday.

Her views were supported by sporting federations such as FINA and World Boxing, she claimed. “Pauline Hanson was characterised as a racist and xenophobe, at one point even ­accused of white supremacy, when in fact she was on a mission to protect Australian jobs,” Ms Deves said.

“We are from different political parties but my empathy is a little more than rich when it comes to the way in which we have both been maliciously ­maligned.”

Ms Deves’s babysitter is a gay man, as is her brother and many of her friends, she wrote.