Liberals to weed out extremist candidates after election

Liberal candidate vetting procedures will be strengthened after the election to prevent extremist influences.

Deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg. Picture Gary Ramage

Liberal state divisions will toughen up candidate vetting processes after the May 18 election, as Josh Frydenberg indicates procedures that allowed people with extremist views to nominate for the party will be reviewed.

Senior party sources said there had been a strong focus on ensuring all candidates were eligible under section 44 of the Constitution but the social media footprint meant comments people made years ago could come back to bite them.

More than a dozen candidates across the political spectrum have been dumped or forced to resign over eligibility issues or inappropriate comments and behaviour, including posting homophobic and anti-Muslim views online.

“There is due diligence being done,” Mr Frydenberg, the deputy Liberal leader, told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“After the election there’s always a review of the procedures that take place in respect to these things. It’s done by the organisational wing, and that will be the same case after this election.

“We’re not aggressively seeking to recruit people with extremist views. Far from it.

“The Liberal Party that I joined, that I’m a member of, that I’m proud to be its deputy and Scott Morrison is proud to be its leader of, we are tolerant. We stand up for people who don’t necessarily have a voice, and those views expressed by some individuals have no place in our party.”

A Labor campaign spokesman refused to say if the party would also review its vetting processes, insisting the party was focused on winning the federal election “unlike the Liberals who are engulfed with chaos and are clearly already working on their post-election containment strategy”.

With 660,000 votes cast in the first five days of pre-poll — more than double the votes cast during the first four days of the 2016 election — Labor sharpened its attack against the Coalition’s preference deals with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

“At this election we have a major political party seeking to embolden those people and amplify their voice,” Labor Senate leader Penny Wong said at the party’s campaign launch in Brisbane.

“A Liberal Party and a National Party seeking government propped up by the preferences of Palmer. Clinging on for dear life to One Nation.”

Mr Frydenberg would not say if he was comfortable with the Liberal Party preferencing the UAP while Mr Palmer still owed the commonwealth $67 million the government paid Queensland Nickel workers as compensation after he closed the refinery.

Mr Palmer claims he has $7m to repay the workers, which his party says has already been paid.

“As the Prime Minister has said, everyone needs to pay their debts and those issues are being pursued in the courts,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“In this country, unless people are in jail, they can run for office.

“When it comes to Clive Palmer and his preferences, the Labor Party chased them.

“They’re now preferencing Clive Palmer in 85 seats, including putting them second on the ballot paper in Franklin and third on the ballot paper in Petrie.

“The Labor Party has been caught out on this. Chris Bowen on Q&A the other day had nowhere to hide when he accepted the Labor Party had been preferencing the UAP ahead of the Liberals.”