Opposition leader Alistair Coe has admitted to flaws in the party's vetting process following the sacking of candidate Peter McKay over his controversial comments about Welcome to Country and the ACT's "homosexual chief minister".
Mr Coe said he wasn't aware of Mr McKay's comments, which were published in a submission to the federal government's religious freedoms review in 2018, until they were reported in the media on Tuesday morning.
Mr McKay was sacked less than 48 hours after Mr Coe and campaign director Josh Manuatu were spruiking the "high-calibre" candidate following his endorsement to the party's election ticket.
Questions have been asked about how thoroughly the Liberals vetted Mr McKay, given his submission was easily accessible via a Google search. Mr McKay, who ran for the Canberra Liberals in 2016, also made controversial comments about sex workers in a publicly available submission to an ACT Legislative Assembly inquiry in 2011.
The candidate preselection process is overseen by the party's administrative wing.
The Canberra Times can reveal the 25 candidates endorsed last year were screened by an external vetting agency, as well as the party's internal process.
But Mr McKay wasn't subject to the same external scrutiny because he only came into consideration after Vijay Dubey was forced off the party's Kurrajong ticket in mid July.
The Liberals also chose not to vet Mr McKay independently because he had previously stood for the party.
It is remains unclear whether party officials were aware of Mr McKay's submission before he was endorsed on the weekend.
In a statement to The Canberra Times, Mr Coe said the process had now been reviewed to "ensure that this does not happen again".
"Plainly Mr McKay shouldn't have been preselected, and as soon as the issues were brought to my attention I moved quickly to deal with the issue," he said.
On Tuesday, Mr Coe told ABC radio that Mr McKay's views were not shared by him or the Canberra Liberals.
"I disagree with the sentiment, I disagree with the words. It was not correct and not something that I stand by," Mr Coe said.
"I very much believe in an inclusive Canberra, a city that values everybody regardless of their faith, their gender, their ethnicity or any other identifying factor."
