Narre Warren North Liberal candidate Timothy Dragan has apologised following a series of controversial comments made at a Narre Warren pre-poll centre last week.
A leaked audio recording obtained by The Sunday Age uncovered a string of comments made by Mr Dragan while campaigning outside the pre-poll centre at Foundation Learning Centre, including remarks blasting climate change, abortion rights and Indigenous acknowledgement.
“There’s no such thing as traditional Australians, because Australia is a post-colonial concept,” Mr Dragan said in the audio recording.
“We won this land fair and square.
“If we’re going to go by what’s Aboriginal, we might as well abolish everything, get our camping chairs and live in the desert.”
Mr Dragan also railed against abortion rights in the recording, which he said he would vote to ban abortion if it went to Parliament.
“Why is the passage through the vagina the reason why you can or can’t murder a human?” Dragan said.
“What makes a vagina’s trajectory so special?”
The Liberal candidate and business consultant was also taped referring to senior Liberal Party member and Berwick candidate Brad Battin as “a prick”.
Mr Dragan revealed that despite living in Mr Battin’s District of Berwick, he put the candidate third on his personal vote, calling him an “egoist and “very selfish”.
“One thing he did that was very annoying was that he tried to stop me from getting pre-selected,” Dragan said of Mr Battin in the leaked recording.
“He knows I’m not going to support him for the leadership, and he wants someone who’ll support him.”
Mr Battin declined to comment when contacted by Star News.
In response to the leaked recording, the Liberal Party issued a statement on behalf of Mr Dragan, who said he “apologise[s] unreservedly for my insensitive and inappropriate language”.
“These comments do not reflect the views or policy positions of the Victorian Liberal Party.”
At a press conference in Bentleigh on Sunday 20 November, Victorian Liberal leader Matt Guy chose to defend his party member.
“He’s not alone in this world for making silly comments and he’s apologised for the ones he made,” Guy told reporters, according to The Age.
“Some of those were disrespectful. I know they were disrespectful … He apologised for those as he should. The first thing you ask if someone who makes any disrespectful comments is to offer an apology, and he gave that, and I think that’s fair and reasonable.”
Premier Daniel Andrews chose not to respond to Mr Dragan’s comments when questioned at a press conference in Narre Warren South on Sunday.
But Labor candidate for the Narre Warren North electorate, Belinda Wilson, said she was “mortified” by the 26-year-old’s comments.
“As a mother and a woman, I was mortified to read what I read in the paper this morning and to have to have a conversation with my three kids that someone actually believes that stuff, is actually frightening,” Ms Wilson said.
Minister for Treaty and First Peoples Gabrielle Williams also hit out at Mr Dragan’s comments on First Nations people, labelling them “extreme, disgraceful and downright unacceptable.
“There’s no place for this type of bigotry in Victoria,” Ms Williams said.
“Matthew Guy needs to come clean with Victorians: does he accept these extreme views? Will he accept them in his party room – or will he rightly disendorse this extremist candidate?”
Mr Dragan has been outspoken about his contentious views in the past.
At a public community forum held at Foundation Learning Centre on 29 October, the Liberal party candidate said teaching gender ideology in school “garbage” and renewable energy is “not actually environmentally friendly”.
“I think it’s very basic biology – XY male, XX female. I don’t think it needs to be disputed any further, any garbage like this should be stopped being taught in schools,” Mr Dragan said at the forum, according to a YouTube recording of the event, which has since been deleted.
He also shared his belief that “ the current ideology behind climate change is not accurate or true“.
“The climate is always changing, I don’t deny that fact, but there is a lot of dispute within the scientific realm about the modern ideology of climate change.
“[Renewables] still need a whole lot more time, they take a lot of space and they’re not actually environmentally friendly – they take a lot to manufacture.”
Following the community forum, Mr Dragan clarified that the comments made on 29 October were his personal views, and not those of Liberal Party policy.
The seat of Narre Warren North is currently held by Labor with a margin of 10.4 per cent, but it is guaranteed a new sitting member as incumbent MP Luke Donnellan exits the seat after 20 years.
