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A spat has erupted as the Federal Election campaign enters its final week over controversial social media posts from both Coalition and Labor candidates.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was campaigning this morning in North Queensland with Leichhardt candidate Jeremy Neal.
While slamming Labor on its cost-of-living record, Dutton was also pressed on some of Neal’s since-deleted social media posts.
“Mr Dutton, your candidate has described China as a grub of a country, and said feminists were to blame for Trump’s loss in 2020. What do you think of those comments?” a reporter asked.
“Well, I think if you look at candidates we’ve got on offer at this selection in Cairns, here in Leichhardt, we’ve got a paramedic, he’s served his country, his state, his local community here for 15 years as a paramedic,” Dutton said.
“In Dickson, you’ve got a candidate, the Prime Minister has endorsed, in terms of neo-Nazi pictures, and other vile posts that she’s supported,” Duston said, referring to Labor candidate Ali France’s resurfaced Twitter posts from 2017 depicting Peter Dutton in Nazi uniform.
“I’m hardly going to take a lecture from the prime minister in relation to these matters,” Dutton said.
Neal distanced himself from Trump during the opposition leader’s press conference and said the people of Cairns were more interested in the cost of living.
In Victoria, the Prime Minister was campaigning this morning with Labor’s MP for Chisholm Carina Garland.
The Prime Minister distanced himself from Ali France’s social media posts.
“I said that was inappropriate. Quite clearly, it was inappropriate,” he said.
In another case of social media skeletons in the closet, Labor candidate Helen Madell came under pressure this week for 2022 posts she made on X criticising Pope Francis.
Albanese also announced $25 million in new funding for community language schools, praising Australia’s strengths as a multicultural nation.
“Our multiculturalism is a strength of our national economy and of our society,” he said.
Opposition leader visits 14th servo of election campaign
Asked to respond to Peter Dutton’s claims this morning that Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers were planning to remove negative gearing, the prime minister denied them.
“In 2022, there was a campaign run suggesting we were gonna make changes,” he said.
“The proof is in the pudding, the proof is, we haven’t made any changes.”
Albanese ruled out removing the policy in the future.
