Australia election 2022: Scott Morrison defends Warringah candidate Katherine Deves

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he won’t allow a controversial Liberal candidate who campaigned against trans women in sport to be ‘silenced’ by moderate party members and a left-wing Twitter pile-on.  

In his strongest comments on the matter yet, Mr Morrison on Tuesday said Warringah candidate Katherine Deves would be a ‘great member of Parliament’ and doubled down on his support for the embattled MP.  

Some moderate Liberal members have called for Ms Deves to be disendorsed after she apologised for calling transgender children ‘surgically mutilated and sterilised’ in tweets last year. 

But Mr Morrison today stood by his candidate, saying: ‘I’m not going to allow her to be pushed aside as the pile on comes in to try and silence her.

‘I will stand up with her, my team is standing up with her, and we will make sure that she won’t be silenced.’ 

Ms Deves co-founded the group Save Women’s Sport which aims to stop transgender women competing alongside biological women. 

‘She is standing up for women and girls and their access to fair sport in this country,’ Mr Morrison said.

‘I think she will make a great Member of Parliament, she has learned in her advocacy in her private life there are better ways to do things to take things forward as a Member of Parliament.  

‘I believe that is how she will approach the task if she is elected as the member for Warringah, and I don’t think she should be silenced,’ he said. 

In the first week of the election campaign Ms Deves apologised for the wording of her old tweets about the issue.

In those tweets she described transgender children as ‘surgically mutilated and sterilised’, and likened her stance on the issue as being akin to the French Resistance fighters who resisted German occupation during World War II. 

Ms Deves revealed she has been bombarded with death threats by left-wing activists on social media. 

Mr Morrison (pictured on Tuesday) has again backed his captain’s pick in his strongest comments so far on the issue

This is the tweet in which Ms Deves made her controversial comments about transgender teenagers. She shared a picture of a trans American teenager who had just had breasts removed and wrote: ‘This photo just hit my feed. It is beyond heartbreaking.’

High profile Liberal moderates Trent Zimmerman and Matt Kean have publicly called on Mr Morrison to dis-endorse her over fears her views will haemorrhage support in inner-city seats.

‘I don’t think having candidates that want to spruik the politics of division is in the interests of the party or in the interests of those people candidates,’ NSW Treasurer Mr Kean said. 

But Ms Deves has support on the party’s conservative wing with former Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott backing her stance. 

On Monday, independent Warringah MP Zali Steggall told Sky News the topic of trans athletes competing in female sport was a ‘distraction’ from bigger issues.

‘I feel there’s a lot of lying going on about the actual status quo, we already have a law. The Sex Discrimination Act already deals with the situation, this is just not an issue,’ Ms Steggall said.

‘And saying that parents will be concerned is just repeating a transphobia line.’

Katherine Deves (pictured) is contesting the independent-held seat of Warringah

When she was asked to clarify why concerns about the issue should be deemed ‘transphobic’ she said ‘because we are talking about a minority of the population that is already incredibly vulnerable.’

‘All this policy approach opts to do is seek division.’ 

Warringah takes in part of Sydney’s northern beaches and north shore. It was Tony Abbott’s seat but was taken by Ms Steggall at the 2019 election. 

She is favourite to hold on to the seat. 

Katherine Deves broke her silence on Saturday to admit the controversy had taken a toll on her