Peter Dutton, the leader of Australia’s right-leaning opposition party, has stood by embattled Liberal Party vice-president Teena McQueen, saying she shouldn’t resign in the wake of controversial comments she made.
McQueen discussed the future of what is historically considered one of Australia’s biggest conservative parties at CPAC Australia last weekend.
She put a positive spin on the Liberal Party’s federal election loss in May, saying it meant some of the party’s “lefties” could be replaced by “good conservative candidates.”
“The good thing about the last federal election is a lot of those lefties are gone—we should rejoice in that,” McQueen said.
“People I’ve been trying to get rid of for a decade have gone, so we need to renew with good conservative candidates.”
South Australian senator Simon Birmingham, who served as a cabinet minister in the last government and is considered a moderate, branded her comments as offensive and disloyal and called for her resignation.
Dutton said he didn’t agree with McQueen’s comments and had spoken to her about them but wouldn’t call for her to go.
“She has expressed a view, she has made a mistake. I’ve made it clear it won’t happen again,” he said.
“There is a desire here to win the next election. We will only do that with discipline. We want people from diverse backgrounds, we want seats across the country.”
Dutton wouldn’t comment on whether McQueen offered an apology for the comments.
“I’m not going into internal matters beyond that,” he said when asked. “It won’t be said again.”
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor said the party didn’t need to engage in a civil war between conservatives and progressives.
“What we need to do is get back to our core liberal values,” he told Sky News.
