Liberal candidate’s offensive posts surface to ruffle feathers in Fowler

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says social media posts made by Liberal candidate Vivek Singha that use a derogatory term for Indigenous Australians are “inappropriate” but has stopped short of dumping him as the party’s candidate for the high-profile western Sydney seat of Fowler.

Singha has apologised for a series of offensive social media posts made between August and October 2023 first revealed by ABC News.

Peter Dutton won’t say if Liberal candidate Vivek Singha should be dumped over offensive social media posts.Credit: JAMES BRICKWOOD

Multiple posts by Singha used derogatory terminology for First Nations people; in one he claimed: “Everybody needs to wake up to the sleeping lazybags (the Alboriginals)”. Singha told the ABC he “should not have expressed” himself in that way.

The revelations have raised questions about campaign literature circulated ahead of Saturday’s federal election by Dai Le, the independent member for Fowler.

A how-to-vote flier being distributed by Le ranks Vivek Singha above Labor candidate, Tu Le, One Nation candidate, Tony Margos and Greens candidate, Avery Jacob Howard. (The flier also says voters should number every box on the ballot “in order of your choice”.)

Le would not say whether her campaign will stop distributing the fliers that suggested preferencing Singha over the ALP and other candidates when asked by the Herald on Monday.

Independent member for Fowler, Dai Le, and her opponent, Labor candidate Tu Le.Credit: Kate Geraghty, Janie Barrett

Le claimed Labor was “desperately trying to falsely link” her to the Liberal Party.

“The reality is simple: I have made it clear on my how to vote that voters should put [1] next to my name – and then number every box in the order they choose,” Le said in a statement to this masthead.

“This is to make voting simpler and clearer for our multicultural community … it’s clearly written on my how-to-vote – voters choose their own preferences.”

Le won a surprise victory in Fowler at the last election when she beat star ALP candidate and former NSW premier Kristina Keneally. Before that, the seat had been in Labor hands since its creation in the early 1980s.

Fowler takes in the suburbs of Liverpool, Cabramatta and St Johns Park, and is one of Australia’s most multicultural electorates.

Le, who is a former Liberal Party member and local councillor, won the seat with a margin of 1.6 per cent over the ALP in 2022. But that buffer has since been cut to 1.1 per cent due to a 2024 electoral redistribution in NSW.

A tight contest between Dai Le and ALP candidate Tu Le is expected in Saturday’s poll.

Dutton declined to say whether Singha should be disendorsed as the Liberal candidate for Fowler when asked about the offensive social media posts on Monday.

“He has apologised for the comments, and so he should have. They were inappropriate and shouldn’t have been made,” Dutton said.

Dutton’s campaign has been hit by several controversies involving Coalition candidates. The Liberal candidate for the NSW seat of Whitlam, Ben Britton, was dumped this month after it emerged he had made remarks about women in the defence forces at odds with party policy.

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