The man who initially beat Scott Morrison in a ballot to contest Cook for the Liberal party 15 years ago has doubled down on his position that the now-prime minister used claims about his Lebanese heritage to undermine him in 2007.
Michael Towke on Sunday in the Nine newspapers publicly backed a 2016 account that preselectors informed him that Morrison had told them in 2007 “a candidate of Lebanese heritage could not hold the seat of Cook, especially after the Cronulla riots” and there was a “strong rumour” that Towke was a Muslim.
Morrison has flatly denied the claim which was ventilated last week in an extraordinary attack from outgoing Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells who labelled the prime minister an “autocrat” and a “bully”.
On Tuesday evening, Fierravanti-Wells told the Senate there were statutory declarations claiming that when Morrison ran for the seat of Cook in 2007 he made “racial comments” about Towke, a Lebanese-Australian.
“I am advised that there are several statutory declarations to attest to racial comments made by Morrison at the time that we can’t have a Lebanese person in Cook,” she told the Senate.
Towke won the initial ballot 82 votes to Morrison’s eight but Fierravanti-Wells noted the state executive later “voted 12 to 11 not to endorse Towke and ordered a modified selection process”.
“The only way that Towke could get political exoneration for a future run was to agree to put his numbers behind Morrison.”
The Saturday Paper reported that those statutory declarations, signed in 2016, claimed Morrison called Towke “a Moslem”.
On Sunday, Towke broke a 15-year silence to confirm his account that preselectors told him Morrison was “adamant and explicit that a candidate of Lebanese heritage could not hold the seat of Cook, especially after the Cronulla riots”.
“It was also brought to my attention that in some of these meetings Morrison informed the preselector that he was aware of a strong rumour that I was actually a Muslim,” Towke’s statutory declaration said according to the Saturday Paper.
Towke told the Nine newspapers on Sunday: “I stand by the declarations I asserted in my statutory declaration.”
“Amongst many unedifying tactics used to unseat me from my preselection victory for Morrison, racial vilification was front and centre and he was directly involved,” he said according to Nine.
“Racism is divisive, creating hate and hurt, and should have no place in Australian society.”
When asked on Saturday if he had said the party could lose in Cook because people thought Towke was a Muslim, Morrison said: “No.”
Morrison claimed he didn’t say those words or suggest Towke couldn’t be trusted because he was Lebanese.
On Sunday, the social services minister, Anne Ruston, said it was “disappointing to see such a calculated and targeted political hit job on eve of the election” by Morrison’s enemies.
“I don’t think anyone has done more for multicultural communities including the Lebanese community,” she told Sky News.
“This should be called out for what it is: it’s a political hit job.”
The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, was asked about Morrison’s denial and replied: “I don’t think anybody believes the prime minister, frankly, I don’t think people believe the prime minister more broadly.”
“There’s a pattern here: the people who know Scott Morrison the best, who’ve worked with him the closest, have the lowest opinion of him and are the least likely to trust him.”
The deputy Liberal leader, Josh Frydenberg, on Sunday noted Morrison had “categorically denied” the allegations. Nobody had ever raised such concerns with him, Frydenberg told ABC’s Insiders.
The treasurer said Muslim leader Jamal Rifi had said in 2016 he believed “there is no racist bone in that man [Morrison]”.
In 2011 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that while shadow immigration minister, Morrison urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate.
The report was subsequently confirmed by other journalists but Morrison denied it, including in March 2019 when he labelled it “a disgraceful smear”.
Morrison claimed his contribution was about lowering community fears, not stoking them. “I was concerned that we needed to address them, which is what I have been doing inside and outside of the parliament for the last 10 years of my life,” he said in March 2019. “It never happened.”
