Embattled Warringah Liberal candidate Katherine Deves insisted that all media were removed from a ‘politicians at the pub’ event on Friday.
Deves minders insisted all media leave the RSL club before she’d enter the building where she appeared alongside Liberal MP Jason Falinski. The audience inside the event was tightly controlled with a strict invite only entry.
After the event she gave a short statement to the media outside but refused to take any questions. Deves said she had fought for women and children and would now fight for Warringah.
Earlier this week Deves pulled out of a candidate forum where she would have appeared alongside candidates from other parties. The co-founder of Save Women’s Sport Australasia has been avoiding the media since a torrent of comments she’d made on social media and in podcasts have been widely criticised by people from all sides of the political spectrum.
Today another of Deves previous comments surfaced, as it was revealed she previously described Pink News, one of the world’s leading LGBTIQA+ news publications, as a mouthpiece for the “Rainbow Reich”.
“Pink News?,” she wrote on her now deleted Twitter account. “Bahahaha. That’s just a mouthpiece for misogynists and the Rainbow Reich.”
It’s not the first comment the candidate has comparing her activism against transgender people to the Holocaust, she previously said her work was like being a member of a French Resistance.
Among Deves other past comments that have questioned are describing young transgender people are being “mutilated,” calling Wear It Purple Day a “grooming exercise”, suggesting trans women are more likely to be sex offenders and serial killers, labeling a trans rights activist as a toilet predator, and saying she was “triggered” by the Pride flag.
Deves has falsely suggested that the Sydney Cricket Ground was permanently renaming the historic Ladies Pavilion the Pride Pavilion and turning all it’s toilets gender neutral, and repeatedly misgendered trans women. She commented on the birth of US Secretary of State Pete Buttigeig’s children as a “human rights violation” and in September last year Deves suggested trans women should be excluded from all women’s spaces because they might be serial killers.
“Transvestism is very common amongst sexual predators, even serial killers. So how are we women supposed to tell the different between the ones who are a threat and the ones who aren’t? Easier for women to exclude all males from spaces where we are vulnerable.” she wrote.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who handpicked Deves as a candidate, has repetitively asked that people look past her previous comments and look at what she has to offer as a potential representative for Warringah.
The mother of three, whose partner is a tradesman, had a long career in marketing but qualified as a lawyer last year. She set up the organisation Save Women’s Sport Australasia and has reportedly worked closely with Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler to develop her private members bill that would allow sporting groups to ban transgender women from clubs and associations.
Deves Twitter account was set up in December 2020 and deleted on the 28th March 2022.
OIP Staff
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