Peter Dutton cryptic message after former Whitlam candidate Ben Britton hits out at Liberals after shock dumping
The Opposition Leader said there were unpublicised reasons for the immediate dumping of a Liberal candidate who claimed women should not serve in combat roles.
Former Whitlam candidate Ben Britton has hit out at what he calls “factionalism” within the Liberal Party following his shock dumping from the federal campaign.
Mr Britton, who served Australia as a paratrooper in East Timor, was disendorsed as the Liberal candidate for the NSW seat after comments surfaced in which he argued that women should not serve in combat roles in the military.
However Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the concerns went “well beyond that”.
“There were a number of issues, not just those, that have been made public in relation to the candidate, and we took a decision to replace Ben as the candidate,” Mr Dutton said on Tuesday.
“That’s the decision we’ve taken on, which you will and that’s the other public commentary on that issue.”
Mr Dutton was also forced to the Coalition’s defence spokesman Andrew Hastie who in 2018 claimed the “fighting DNA of a close combat unit is best preserved when it’s exclusively male”.
The Liberal Leader said women could serve “any role” they wanted to, and that would be the “position under any government I lead. ”
“Andrew Hastie’s view is the same as mine,” he said.
The comments come after Mr Britton claimed women should not service in combat positions while speaking to a fringe podcast hosted by right-wing figure Joel Jammal.
“Their hips are being destroyed because they (women) can’t cope with the carrying of the heavy loads and the heavy impacts that is required for doing combat-related jobs,” he said at the time.
“Why would you want to send your beautiful women? Your females, the ones that are the backbone of your society. Your society only exists because of women. Why would you want to sacrifice them in war, on the altar?”
Mr Britton made the comments before his preselection for the seat in December, but he was dumped from the election over the weekend, with a Liberal Party spokesman saying Mr Britton had expressed views that were “inconsistent” with the party’s position.
Anthony Albanese said Mr Britton’s remarks demonstrated a “hard right” takeover of the Liberal Party.
“Women will be asking themselves, what is going on when Peter Dutton can endorse a bloke who has the views that he put forward over a long period of time,” the Prime Minister said in Melbourne on Monday.
“This is a part of the takeover of the Liberal Party by the hard right.”
In an interview with 2GB on Tuesday morning, Mr Britton slammed reports that alleged he had said women should not serve in the military and stressed he was speaking only about combat roles.
“You said that I don’t want women in the ADF, that’s in fact the opposite is true,” he said.
“I serve with great women in the ADF. I serve with extraordinary women.
“My position is the same as Andrew Hastie, the shadow minister for defence and the great Jim Molan, that women should not serve specifically in combat roles, specifically in the army itself.”
Mr Hastie, the member for Canning, has previously argued that close combat units should be exclusively male.
Mr Britton said “higher-ups” within the Liberal Party and the Labor Party had manoeuvred to dump him from the campaign.
“It’s a witch hunt because they didn’t want me there and it’s factions within the party that didn’t want me there,” he said.
“It’s because I wouldn’t sign up to a faction. I wouldn’t be controlled. I wouldn’t be told what to say. I would say what I want when I want.
“Then at the end of the day, what’s occurring within the NSW division right now is a systematic plot from the left.
“The left faction working hand-in-glove with members of the right faction who are traitors to stab Peter Dutton in the back, ensure he doesn’t get elected as the prime minister so they can roll him as leader. That’s what’s happening.
“I’ve been one of his biggest supporters. I’ve tried to get him the message.”
Mr Britton also said the “faceless men” of the party had alleged he had faced domestic violence charges.
“Then they just kept inventing on the fly and making up things,” he said.
“They were actually making up things on the fly saying, ‘you have domestic violence charges that were against you’.
“That’s completely false. I’ve never had a domestic violence in my life. I’ve never been accused of it.
“And then they brought up, ‘there’s sexual assault claims out there against you’, which is again false.
“There’s never been a claim, mate, about that. And they kept going down that line.”
Mr Britton said he had never been accused of any form of violence, bullying, harassment, intimidation, domestic violence or sexual assault.
Mr Britton refused to name the people he alleged had unfairly maligned him.
“At the end of the day, naming the hierarchy and the people that are behind it, I don’t think it’s going to be helpful,” he said.
The new Liberal candidate for Whitlam is Nathaniel Smith, the chief executive of the Master Plumbers Association of NSW.
He will front up against Labor candidate Carol Berry for the Illawarra seat.
Originally published as Peter Dutton cryptic message after former Whitlam candidate Ben Britton hits out at Liberals after shock dumping
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