Ben Britton has been dumped as a Liberal candidate for the New South Wales seat of Whitlam after it was revealed he had expressed a string of controversial views on fringe podcasts before his preselection.
Britton was taken off the Liberal party’s website, and the party has confirmed he was no longer being endorsed, with the party quickly replacing him with Nathaniel Smith.
Britton had told a rightwing podcast Australia’s education system “brainwashed” students, and had also claimed that women should not serve in combat positions with the Australian defence force (ADF).
His replacement is currently the CEO of the Master Plumbers Association of NSW and was the former NSW Liberal MP for the seat of Wollondilly from 2019 to 2023.
A spokesperson for the Liberal party told Guardian Australia the Administrative Committee of the NSW Division met today to endorse Smith.
They said the decision to dis-endorse Britton was “over views expressed which were not previously disclosed and are inconsistent with the party’s position”.
The spokesperson said Smith is “raising his two daughters with his wife Christine in the Southern Highlands”.
Britton, who was praised by Peter Dutton as an “outstanding candidate”, ran unsuccessfully for the United Australia party at the 2022 federal election.
He has since claimed “diversity and equity quotas, Marxist ideology and woke ideologies” have weakened the country’s defences, singling out a 2013 change allowing women to be recruited into frontline combat positions.
Among Britton’s other claims expressed on the podcasts are:
Exposure to pornography leads to gender dysphoria and “transgender desires”;
Labor intentionally keeps some electorates poor to have a better chance of winning them;
Australia should “look at the Isle of Man” for lessons on introducing a flat tax rate to attract billionaires;
The education system has “brainwashed” young Australians with Marxist ideology.
Interviewed on a podcast hosted by the rightwing figure Joel Jammal last July, Britton said he had served with “tremendous” women in the ADF but criticised the recruitment of women for combat roles.
“Basically, long story short, if we’re to fix our defence force, unfortunately, they’re going to need to remove females from combat corps,” Britton said.
“Their hips are being destroyed because they can’t cope with the carrying of the heavy loads and the heavy impacts that’s required from doing combat-related jobs.
“I knew some of the toughest men I’ve ever met in my life, absolute nails. War left them a shaking mess. Drug addicted. Can’t go outside the house because they have panic attacks … If war can do that to them and destroy them, why would you want to send your beautiful women? Your females – the ones that are the backbone of your society. Your society only exists because of women … Why would you want to sacrifice them in war, on the altar?”
The seat of Whitlam is held by retiring MP Stephen Jones, who retained the seat for Labor in 2022 on an 8.3% margin.
Labor is running Carol Berry in the seat, the CEO of The Disability Trust, a disability services provider.
Britton has been contacted for comment.
