‘Not fit to hold public office’: Peter Dutton responds to fake image of him dressed as a Nazi
Peter Dutton has broken his silence over a meme of him dressed as a Nazi posted by an ALP opponent.
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Peter Dutton has broken his silence regarding his opponent Ali France sharing a meme of him dressed as a Nazi.
The Liberal leader has slammed Anthony Albanese for refusing to condemn the historical social media post warning the ALP was “trashing” its own brand.
“The Prime Minister, by digging deeper on this issue, is frankly trashing his own credibility, although he is preferencing in his own seat of Grayndler somebody who is anti-Semitic and opposed to the Jewish people,’’ he told The Briefing.
“So I guess this is the standard that the Prime Minister is willing to accept and it says a lot about the Prime Minister”
“I think rapidly they’ll draw the conclusion that (reasonable people would) that the Labor candidate in Dickson is not fit to hold public office.
“People can make mistakes, I don’t believe this is a one-off circumstance and follows a pattern of conduct for a long period of time”
Albo unleashes amid ‘Nazi Dutton’ pic saga
Earlier, Mr Albanese is standing firm behind a star Labor candidate busted for sharing social media posts depicting Peter Dutton as a Nazi.
Speaking in Perth, the Prime Minister confirmed he will not be disendorsing Ali France despite the questionable content she has shared.
“Look, people will go after people’s history going back to more than decade,” he said.
“During the last campaign, Ail France was attacked for, quote, “using her disability” as an excuse for why she lived in the home that she lived in.
“Ali France is someone who lost her leg saving her child’s life. Ali France is an extraordinary
Australian.
“She’s someone who has overcome extraordinary adversity during this time, while she’s been a candidate the loss of her son, and has overcome tragedy.”
On Thursday morning news.com.au revealed Ms France, Labor’s star candidate, shared social media posts depicting Peter Dutton as a Nazi and backed claims Israel is an “openly racist apartheid regime” in newly unearthed posts on X.
In one disturbing post obtained by news.com.au, she shares a post depicting Peter Dutton and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wearing Nazi uniforms.
“It’s getting grim at Lib HQ,’’ the post she shared in March, 2017 on X states.
Mr Dutton appears to be wearing an SS uniform in the post. The SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads) was originally established as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard unit but subsequently morphed into the elite guard of the Nazi Reich.
In other newly unearthed posts she also writes that Church-run aged care providers “should be taxed.”
“Churches R big business & in this case treat stuff like an unscrupulous multinational. They should pay tax!,’’ she wrote.
“Religious institutions should b taxed! Private education IS big business for them and so is aged care,’’ she wrote in another post in 2017.
Ms France, who is running in the Queensland seat against Peter Dutton in the election also described him as “a monster” and suggested that if you went to work for him you would have to “park your morals at the door.”
In a series of extraordinary social media posts over the last decade, she also labelled Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie as “creepy” before adding a clown emoji and described Liberal frontbenchers as “supervillains”.
Executive Council of Jewry CO-CEO Alex Ryvchin said the Labor candidate should clarify her position.
“While the absurd comments about Israel and grossly offensive Nazi comparisons were made a long time ago, the candidate should clarify her position,” he said.
“Electors have a right to know whether she still holds such flippant views about Nazism and takes hard-left Greens positions on Israel or now aligns with her own party.”
In a statement to news.com.au, Ms France said she had reflected on the posts.
“I should have chosen my words more carefully in the past,’’ she said.
“But I have always felt extremely passionately about the Liberals’ systematic dismantling of the NDIS.
“I want to see peace and believe in a two-state solution, with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace and security.”
Ali France’s posts on Israel
But it’s a series of anti-Israel posts that are likely to concern the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he campaigns in Western Australia.
In one social media post published at 1am on Christmas Day in 2016, she posts “Merry Christmas Twitterers”, before sharing a Christmas card designed by the artist Banksy.
The Christmas card depicts the holy family (Joseph and Mary) heading towards Bethlehem only to find Israel’s Separation Barrier, which is described in the post as “the Apartheid Wall”. In another in December, 2016 she retweeted a post stating, “Wow. The Turnbull government is backing an openly racist apartheid regime ahead of the US and New Zealand.”
It referred to Australia’s decision to oppose a UN resolution condemning Israel’s settlements program in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The foreign affairs minister at the time was Julie Bishop, who said in a statement Australia did not support “one-sided resolutions targeting Israel”.
The resolution was co-sponsored by New Zealand, which the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said was tantamount to a “declaration of war”.
In 2017, she retweeted a post by the Greens Senator Scott Ludlam which showed a map of Israel and Palestine shrinking in terms of land from 1946 through to 2010.
The same year she wrote in another social media post, “Imagine working for Dutton, check your morality in at door please before u start work.”
Scott Ludlam: “this sounds amazing”.
In another post she responded to former Greens Senator Scott Ludlam posting an image of a Daily Mail UK deadline: “Corbyn’s fantasy land - Three-day weekend for jam-making. Foxes encouraged to hunt Tories. War replaced with free everything. Blairites forced to get in the sea. Rich people’s stuff: ‘we’ll give it away at bingo’”.
“This sounds amazing,’’ he wrote before Ms France retweeted it.
In 2018, she reposted a tweet by unionist John Setka who suggested that Peter Dutton was an “Immigration Minister who is racist” and added “why sacking Peter Dutton should be at the top of Australia’s list of New Year’s resolutions.”
Two years ago she posted a story suggesting the Coalition would make cuts to the NDIS to pay for submarines
“What he’s saying here is that disabled people should fund the AUKUS submarines by going without essential support,’’ Ms France said.
“And some say he’s not a monster! #NDIS #AUKUS.”
Liberals “hypocrites” on Christianity
In another post reflecting on the Liberal Party and Christianity she said the Coalition were hypocrites when it came to refugees.
“Abbott, Dutton, Morrison, Turnbull and co. can speak, pray & preach Christianity but it is their behaviour which reveals their true character,’’ she said.
In another post she linked to an ABC article that was headlined, “Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man” followed by a love heart and the words “this”.
Taking aim at the Coalition frontbench in 2017, she compared them with supervillains.
“I’d like to have (Alan) Tudge, (Sussan) Ley, (Peter) Dutton & (George) Brandis’ lying abilities classified as supervillain superpowers please. #auspol #supervillains,’’ she wrote.
Ms France and the Prime Minister’s office have been contacted for comment.
Previous controversy
Mr Dutton was forced to apologise to his Labor opponent Ali France in 2019 for suggesting she was using her disability as an “excuse” for not living in the Dickson electorate.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday defended Mr Dutton, saying he did not believe the Home Affairs Minister was using her disability as a basis of a political attack.
But Mr Dutton apologised on Twitter the next day.
“My argument with the Labor candidate is about how our respective policies would affect the people of Dickson,” he wrote.
Labor candidate quits over anti-Semitic posts
Four years ago, former Labor MP Melissa Parke withdrew as the party’s candidate for the Perth seat of Curtin after comments she made criticising Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
In a speech to the WA Labor for Palestine, she recounted an incident where “a pregnant refugee woman was ordered at a checkpoint in Gaza to drink a bottle of bleach”, and said that the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians was “worse than the South African system of apartheid”.
She later rejected Executive Council of Australian Jewry chief executive Alex Ryvchin’s claim on Friday that she was an “extreme and divisive figure”, saying “it is not anti Semitic to protest injustice and to support the international rule of law & non-discrimination”.
Originally published as ‘Not fit to hold public office’: Peter Dutton responds to fake image of him dressed as a Nazi
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