The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has flatly denied allegations he said his competitor for preselection in 2007 was a Muslim who was “being investigated”.
Last week, Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells launched an extraordinary attack on Morrison in parliament. She called him an “autocrat [and] a bully who has no moral compass” and was scathing of his intervention in New South Wales preselections.
Fierravanti-Wells also said there were statutory declarations claiming that when Morrison ran for the seat of Cook in 2007 he made “racial comments” about Michael Towke, who was running against him.
“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 said.
“The state executive 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 reports that those statutory declarations, signed in 2016, claim Morrison called Towke “a Moslem”.
They also allege that he told preselectors they could not afford to have a person of Lebanese background in the seat, suggested there were “allegations” about him, and that he was “being investigated”.
When asked on Saturday if he had said the party could lose in Cook because people thought Towke was a Muslim, Morrison said: “No.”
He said he didn’t say those words or suggest Towke couldn’t be trusted because he was Lebanese. “Where is the story coming from?” a reporter asked.
“You’ll have to ask them,” Morrison responded.
A second report, in the Nine newspapers, claims two men in that preselection battle had signed testimonies that Morrison backgrounded against his opponent by saying he was too much of an electoral risk because of his ethnic background and because of rumours he was a Muslim.
One man, according to the Nine report, said Morrison told him if Towke took Cook, there would be a swing against the Coalition because of Towke’s Lebanese heritage.
The other testimony, reportedly written by Towke, said a number of members told him Morrison said similar things to them.
Guardian Australia reported in 2019 that Morrison’s preselection “still stokes fury” within his party after an “indexed shit file” on Towke was wheeled out.
Former Labor senator Sam Dastyari said he had prepared the file and handed it to “Morrison’s factional lieutenants”.
He had told Sydney radio: “I would never underestimate Scott Morrison because I would never underestimate a guy who would turn to one of his political opponents to take out one of his own… a guy who will do that will do anything.”
Guardian Australia has contacted Towke and Fierravanti-Wells for comment.
