Queensland election: LNP attacks Steven Miles for spreading ‘dirt sheet’ on candidate
An LNP candidate has had to fend off a personal attack after the Deputy Premier handed out a smear sheet to journalists.
Deb Frecklington has fired up on the campaign trail, criticising Steven Miles after the Deputy Premier orchestrated a smear attack on Liberal National Party candidate Glenn Doyle over a Facebook post that appears to suggest he questioned education for women.
The LNP leader echoed Scott Morrison’s call for Mr Miles to “grow up” and accused “Labor lefties” of being unsupportive of women in regional Queensland.
Mr Miles handed journalists a supposed dirt sheet on the LNP’s candidate in the must-win seat of Mundingburra before a press conference in Townsville on Thursday.
Pt 2of2 LNP's candidate for Mundingburra Glenn Doyle questions if education is a waste of time for married women. #qldvotes pic.twitter.com/C8IOzPw5C6
— David Marler (@Qldaah) October 15, 2020
It featured a screenshot of a 2018 post from Mr Doyle’s private Facebook account in which the police inspector commented on an ABC newsclip from 1961 asking “Is education a waste of time for married women?”
Mr Doyle wrote: “A lot of good points raised on both sides here — I’m afraid I’ll have to sit on the fence. Definitely more research needed!”
It came after the emergence of a Facebook post from 2015 in which Mr Doyle captioned a photo of him and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson with “the next prime minister”.
Ms Frecklington stood by her candidate and called out the personal attacks that have become a feature of Mr Miles’s press conferences.
“When it comes to the Deputy Premier of Queensland, I’m on an absolute unity ticket with the Prime Minister of Australia — that bloke needs to grow up,” she said.
In what appears to be a concerted effort to quarantine Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who warned the campaign would get “nasty”, Mr Miles has assumed the role of chief antagonist during the campaign.
This week he accused Mr Morrison of taking a week off to run Ms Frecklington’s campaign.
Mr Miles’s remarks have been condemned by Mr Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, who have referred to him as a “stumbling, bumbling lightweight”.
Questioned about whether her advocacy for women was unpopular among conservative voters, Ms Frecklington, the first female leader of the LNP, unleashed on “Labor lefties”, saying “I champion jobs for little girls who actually want to work and grow up and aspire to be something”.
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