Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has addressed recent controversy around Labor candidate Ali France‘s resurfaced tweets after it emerged she shared a doctored image of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in a Nazi uniform.
France is contesting against Dutton in the Brisbane seat of Dickson for the third consecutive election.
The prime minister has campaigned alongside France in the electorate, which Dutton holds on a margin of just 1.7 per cent, making it one of the most marginal seats in the country.
First reported by news.com.au on Thursday morning, France’s controversial post in question was published on X (formerly Twitter) in 2017.
In a tweet shared by another user, captioned “it’s getting grim at Lib HQ” and reposted by France, Dutton and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull are depicted wearing Nazi uniforms.
Addressing questions about the posts, Albanese said he would not be disendorsing the candidate, pointing out most Australians might have shared content online that they later regretted.
“Ali France is an extraordinary Australian and I don’t know what your tweets are like more than a decade ago,” Albanese said at a press conference in Perth.
He went on to describe France — whose leg was amputated after a car accident — as “outstanding”, highlighting her resilience and personal story.
“Ali France is someone who lost her leg saving her child’s life when she pushed a pram forward and was hit by a motor vehicle. [She] is an extraordinary Australian,” he said.
Deep-diving into more of France’s previous posts over the last decade, news.com.au also reported France had called Dutton “a monster” and referred to Liberal frontbenchers as “supervillains”.
Per the publication, in a separate post, France took aim at NDIS budget cuts, suggesting the Coalition would make cuts to the NDIS to pay for submarines.
“What [Dutton’s] saying here is that disabled people should fund the AUKUS submarines by going without essential support,” she wrote. “And some say he’s not a monster!”
France has addressed the controversy, telling news.com.au she has reflected on the posts and should have “chosen [her] words more carefully” in the past.
“But I have always felt extremely passionately about the Liberals’ systematic dismantling of the NDIS,” she said.
France also addressed some of her posts about Israel, telling the publication: “I want to see peace and believe in a two-state solution, with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace and security.”
In one of her old tweets, the Labor candidate had called out Israel as an “openly racist apartheid regime”. In 2017, she also retweeted a post by the Greens Senator Scott Ludlam which showed a map of Israel and Palestine shrinking in terms of land from 1946 through to 2010.
Earlier this month, another controversial display depicting Dutton as a Nazi emerged in NSW’s Wagga Wagga in a storefront poster by visual artist Michael Agzarian.
It showed the Opposition leader alongside former deputy prime minister and Nationals MP for Riverina Michael McCormack, and billionaires Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart, in German World War II army uniforms.
In a statement to PEDESTRIAN.TV at the time, Agzarian explained the poster is intended to “make the viewer think”.
“How people view this work is a personal matter. The fact is many, many people support my art by buying it, backing it, display it and sharing it. Of course there are others who are offended or angered by it and that’s their prerogative,” he said.
“Put simply, I endeavour to make the viewer think, engage and consider a different point of view. I do not promote hate, racism or violence.”
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