Price in ‘racism, sexism’ attack on Di Natale

Liberal candidate Jacinta Price has unleashed an extraordinary attack on Richard Di Natale.

Coalition candidate for the seat of Lingiari, Jacinta Price, left, says Greens leader, Richard Di ­Natale, right, is the “epitome of racism and sexism”.

Liberal candidate Jacinta Price has unleashed an extraordinary attack on Greens leader Richard Di ­Natale, declaring he is the “epitome of racism and sexism” for standing by his indigenous candidate who called her a “coconut”.

Senator Di Natale suffered his first casualty of the election campaign yesterday when Jay Dessi, his candidate for the Melbourne seat of Lalor, was forced to resign over social media posts, revealed in reports in The Australian.

Greens candidate for Lingiari, George Hanna.

Senator Di Natale dug in ­behind his candidate for the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, George Hanna, who shared a meme on Facebook describing Ms Price, the Liberals’ candidate in the same seat, as a coconut.

“What Di Natale has endorsed is exactly what I campaign against, which is Aboriginal people attacking one another,” Ms Price said.

“They think it’s fine to use the slur of coconut because it’s an ­Aboriginal person using it against another (Aboriginal) person. To say that I’m black on the outside and white on the inside is to say that being white is something lesser. It’s a put-down based on race, and it needs to be called out just like any other slur based on race.”

Ms Price said if Mr Hanna were a white conservative male directing his remarks at an indigenous woman, or any woman, the Left would be “all over it like a rash — they would be jumping up and down”.

“As far as I am concerned, both these men (Senator Di Natale and Mr Hanna) resemble the epitome of racism and sexism.

“This is why Aboriginal women suffer the most, because for some strange and ­racist reason, we are viewed as less and somehow ­violence and attacks against us are acceptable if it comes from our own.”

Ms Price, a Warlpiri/Celtic woman from Alice Springs whose mother is former NT politician and Aboriginal activist Bess Price, acknowledged she had attacked people for their views but said she was calling out the “double standards of the Left”.

“I’m disgusted that Richard Di Natale is prepared to keep (Mr Hanna) just because he’s a black man,” she said.

Jay Dessi who was forced to quit yesterday over a series of offensive social media posts.

Mr Dessi’s resignation means 18 candidates have been disendorsed, withdrawn over eligibility concerns or resigned for offensive social media posts since the federal election was called, according to political analyst Kevin Bonham.

Of those 18 candidates, seven will appear on ballot papers because they were forced to quit their party after nominations closed.

Between 2012 and 2015, Mr Dessi joked about having sex with children and dead people, made a racist joke about an Asian friend’s eyes, posted a cartoon about oral sex and liked a post that joked about abortion and child pornography. “I again apologise for offence that my posts may have caused,” he said yesterday.

A Victorian Greens spokesman said the party would take down campaigning materials in his name and apologised for not picking up Mr Dessi’s “unsavoury” posts during the vetting process.

“This election has made it clear that social media has created new challenges for all parties in the candidate selection process, particularly for younger candidates who have grown up using social media,” the spokesman said.

“Following the Victorian ­elec­tion, the Australian Greens provided additional resources to state parties to assist in the vetting of ­social media profiles.

“As a grassroots organisation, we do rely upon the assistance of candidates during this process. In this instance, some unsavoury comments from several years ago were not identified. The Victorian Greens apologise for this error.”

Senator Di Natale, who asked for a full briefing on Mr Dessi’s comments, said his posts were “clearly unacceptable”.

“Jay Dessi has given an unreserved apology to anyone (the posts) may have offended,” the Greens leader said. “I have now been advised that he has stood down as candidate for Lalor.”

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said candidates from all political parties had “behaved inappropriately” on social media, but stopped short of calling for Mr Hanna to resign.

Senator Di Natale was accused of double standards by the major parties after he publicly condemned others over hate speech.

Amid the candidate turmoil, Scott Morrison admitted yesterday he did not think comments by Gurpal Singh, the Liberal Party’s candidate for the safe Labor seat of Scullin in Melbourne, linking same-sex marriage to paedophilia was acceptable but his candidacy had continued.

“That matter was dealt with by the party organisation several weeks ago,” the Prime Minister said.

He was questioned over Mr Singh’s remarks after he said last week “the standard you walk past is the standard you ­accept”.

Senator Di Natale declined to respond to Ms Price’s attack.

Additional reporting: Rachel Baxendale, Luke Griffiths