A One Nation candidate in Victoria has apologised for a series of offensive comments including repeated references to Australian-Indians as “curry munchers”, comparing a woman in burqa to a bag of rubbish, and sharing an image calling Julia Gillard a slut.
The party’s candidate for Greenvale on Melbourne’s north-western fringe, Chris Moore, also made derogatory comments about lesbians and refugees and once posted that he “doesn’t like the way the new homo cleaner at work looks at me”.
One Nation Victoria has not disendorsed the candidate over the comments, which were made on his personal Facebook page between ۲۰۱۰ and ۲۰۱۲.
In a statement, Moore told Guardian Australia “these were unthoughtful posts I shared as a young man among close friends”.
“They don’t reflect who I am today,” Moore said. “Today I’m focused on doing the right thing by the voters of Greenvale, and giving them a strong voice in the Victorian Parliament.”
In ۲۰۱۲, Moore shared a picture of a woman and a child both wearing a burqa and standing between two full plastic rubbish bags. He then posted: “Haha spot the difference.”
Moore also shared an image of Gillard and the Neighbours character Alf Stewart. The image of Gillard was accompanied by the caption: “smash my box Alf!” The image of Stewart was accompanied with: “If I wanted a greasy red box I’d go to KFC ya slut.”
Moore also posted saying he “should probably stop shouting ‘Curry Muncher’ at the TV when I’ve got Indians living next door”. He also posted that he “wonders who does the dishes in a lesbian relationship?”
In ۲۰۱۰ he posted: “Just got the curry munchers to wash his car and pretty happy with the way it came up, looks like the boat people are good for something after all?”
Greenvale is a fairly safe Labor seat with a margin of ۷.۱%. It is held by Iwan Walters, a parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs.
The electorate has a large Islamic and West Asian population. It has one of the highest proportions of people born in the Middle East and the lowest share of people with no religion.
At the last election, there was a swing of almost ۱۵% against Labor on a two-party preferred basis.
On Tuesday, One Nation Victoria disendorsed its candidate for Preston, Franco Guardiani, whose private social media account described Adolf Hitler as the “GOAT” and claimed that “importing Islam is making pedophilia legal”.
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The party’s Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, said Guardiani was disendorsed as soon as the comments were confirmed.
“At a time when Jewish Australians are experiencing unprecedented persecution, we are appalled that these comments have been made,” Pickering said.
Guardiani said he was disappointed by the party’s decision to dump him but understood their decision.
One Nation also disendorsed its candidate for the seat of Melbourne, Matthew Collins, over now-deleted comments on social media regarding a number of issues including sexual consent and pornographic jokes. Collins has apologised for the comments.
It is unclear how these candidate’s personal social media histories were not detected during candidate selection and vetting processes. The party has claimed to have invested time and money into improving this process.
In Victoria, One Nation candidates must provide their personal social media accounts for vetting. They are also interviewed by a three-person selection panel including Pickering and two party officials.
