Liberal candidate says women should not serve in ADF combat roles amid range of controversial views
The Liberal candidate for the NSW seat of Whitlam expressed a string of controversial views on fringe podcasts before his preselection, including the claim that women should not serve in combat positions with the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Benjamin Britton, who has been 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.
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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 right-wing 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,' he said.
'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 Liberal party's hope for Whitlam, held by the retiring minister Stephen Jones on an 8.3% margin, said women sent to the frontline in Ukraine had been killed because they 'didn't stand a chance'.
'You're seeing all the bodies in there – braided hair didn't stand a chance. Should never have been there in the first place. Can barely hold up a rifle, and they put them on the frontline to just be killed, and … you're throwing away one of the most precious things that you have in your society,' Britton said.
About 20% of military personnel are women, and the ADF has made efforts to increase recruitment in recent years. Women were allowed to take combat roles for the first time in 2013, and from 2014, they could apply for special forces roles contingent on passing a physical and fitness examination.
There is no evidence that standards have been lowered to increase the number of women taking on frontline roles.
On the podcasts, he also linked adolescent exposure to pornography as 'pushing' young men into 'transgender desires'.
'This is why we see extreme, unrealistic sexual practices and desires in the community [that] have risen massively over the last, say, 40 years, as a direct result of pornography,' he said.
Britton covered many other areas on the fringe podcasts, including conspiracies, such as one claiming Labor intentionally kept safe seats poor, his support for Australia becoming a tax haven like the Isle of Man and his opposition to the 'Big Brother' social media age verification system supported by both major parties.
In an August podcast, Britton claimed the education system 'brainwashed' and 'indoctrinated' young Australians with Marxist ideologies.
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'It's a disaster, but it shows how much of a failure our education system has been because no longer do they take children and teach them how to think, they teach them what to think, and they teach them the wrong thing,' he said.
Britton also suggested Labor and the Greens were using Marxist ideology to trick voters into supporting them before abandoning them in power, and said their supporters would not be capable of 'running Gulags'.
Britton was preselected to run for the safe Labor seat, which takes in parts of the south coast and southern highlands, in December 2024, with the opposition pitching him as a champion for small business and housing ownership.
In his endorsement announcement, Britton was described as working as a chief information security officer in the defence industry sector. He works at Britton Maritime Systems, based in Sydney's Sutherland Shire. It is owned by Stephen Britton, and features a personal endorsement on its website from the former prime minister Scott Morrison.
In January, Dutton posted a picture of himself and Britton on Instagram during a visit to Moss Vale.
'Ben's working hard in his community and standing up for local families and small businesses, drawing on his dedication as a veteran and his leadership in the defence industry,' the opposition leader wrote in the post.
'This area has been ignored by a local Labor member who is asleep at the wheel, but with our positive plans and an outstanding candidate like Ben, we'll get this region and our country back on track.'
The veteran will face two female candidates in the contest for Whitlam: Labor's Carol Berry and the National's Katrina Hodgkinson.
Neither Britton nor the Coalition's campaign headquarters responded to a request for comment.
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