LNP candidate in critical Queensland seat apologises after controversial posts on China and ‘feminists' resurface
A Liberal-National candidate in a must-win Queensland seat has apologised after social media posts airing controversial views about China, Covid-19 restrictions and 'feminists' who helped 'kick out' Donald Trump in 2020 resurfaced.
In the latest candidate controversy to hit Peter Dutton's campaign, the online history of his Leichhardt candidate Jeremy Neal was brought to light on Wednesday.
Neal is in a fight to retain the Cairns-based seat as Labor attempts to capitalise on the retirement of veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch.
A dossier of now-deleted social media posts revealed by the Courier Mail showed Neal – a paramedic – railed against China, Covid-19 lockdowns and Daniel Andrews' Victorian government during the first two years of the pandemic.
'We're isolating ourselves into poverty' #covid19australia #lockdownextension #BoycottChina,' Neal wrote on Twitter, now X, in July 2020.
In another post, Neal described Victoria as a 'facist state' that would have made [Italian dictator Benito] Mussolini 'proud'.
Neal labelled China a 'grub of a country' in November 2020, after a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman posted a fake picture depicting an Australian soldier murdering an Afghan child.
In a statement, Neal apologised for the 'poorly worded' posts.
'The posts in question, which have long been deleted, were poorly worded and I unreservedly apologise for them,' he said.
'The majority of these were posted in the midst of the Covid pandemic when I was working on the frontline as a paramedic, attending some extremely traumatic incidents in my community.
'These experiences had a profound impact on me at the time.'
Neal's enthusiastic support for Donald Trump is also in the spotlight, aiding Labor as it attempts to tie Peter Dutton to the US president.
Images from Neal's campaign launch on 6 April – three days after Trump announced his 10% global tariffs – captured supporters wearing Maga-themed hats with the slogan 'Make Albo go away'.
Trump also featured in the dossier of resurfaced tweets, with Neal posting in August 2021 that 'feminists helped kick Trump out only to ruin~19000000 women's lives in #Afghanistan under #Biden'.
In his Wednesday statement, Neal said: 'I share Peter Dutton's concerns over President Trump's tariffs, particularly the impact they will have on our local beef industry.'
The emergence of the Neal's posts comes after the NSW Liberal Party dumped Whitlam candidate Ben Britton after Guardian Australia revealed a string of controversial views on fringe podcasts, including that women should be barred from frontline roles in the military.
Britton was replaced by former state MP Nathaniel Smith, who once claimed school students were being brainwashed by Marxist and woke ideologies.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, described Neal's social media posts as 'extraordinary'.
'I don't know where [the Coalition] are getting these … candidates from.'
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