Peter Dutton has dumped a Liberal candidate over his previous comments about women less than a month out the federal election.
Benjamin Britton, who was running for the Liberals in the NSW seat of Whitlam south of Sydney, called for all women to be removed from frontline roles in the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Speaking on a right-wing podcast last August, Mr Britton said the ADF ‘need to remove females from combat corps’ in order to ‘fix’ our military.
He said ‘diversity and equity quotas, Marxist ideology and woke ideologies’ were to blame for weakening Australia’s defence.
Speaking to podcaster Joel Jammal, Mr Britton, who previously served in the Australian Army, said the ADF had become burdened with diversity and equity quotas and other ‘bureaucratic nonsense’.
‘If we’re to fix our defence force, unfortunately they’re going to need to remove females from combat corps,’ he said.
But after being roundly condemned for his comments in recent days, the Liberals announced on Sunday that Mr Britton was no longer its candidate and removed his profile from the party’s website.
‘This follows a decision to disendorse Benjamin Britton over views expressed which were not previously disclosed and are inconsistent with the party’s position,’ a statement read.
In January, Mr Dutton (pictured left) described Mr Britton (pictured right) as an ‘outstanding candidate’
Benjamin Britton (pictured) made the comments about women in the ADF during an interview on a right-wing podcast in August
Mr Britton has swiftly replaced as the Liberal candidate by Nathaniel Smith, chief executive of the Master Plumbers Association of NSW.
The married father-of-two previously served one term as the state MP for Wollondilly before he was ousted at the 2023 NSW election.
‘Nathaniel has been a passionate advocate for small businesses and investment in trades and training,’ a party statement added.
‘He will campaign to ease Labor’s cost of living burden on local households and small businesses, and help people struggling under the growing burden of mortgages, rents, and everyday expenses.’
The seat is currently held by retiring Labor assistant Treasurer and financial services minister Stephen Jones on an 8.3 per cent margin.
Mr Jones has held the seat since it was first created in 2016.
Mr Britton’s interview emerged after the Coalition leader Peter Dutton praised him as an ‘outstanding candidate’ in a social media post earlier this year.
The January 22 post showed Mr Dutton visiting Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands, which falls under the Whitlam seat.
Benjamin Britton (centre) is pictured with Peter Dutton (right) when the former was still a Liberal Party candidate
‘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 post read.
‘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.’
In his now infamous podcast interview, Mr Britton seemed to realise that his comments could come back to haunt him, saying his views were ‘not an attack on females, I served with some of the greatest females in the defence force.
‘Tremendous people, and I’m very very glad to have met them and known them because they made my life better knowing them,’ he said.
But Mr Britton, who unsuccessfully ran as an United Australia candidate at the 2022 election said young women were being ‘pushed’ into infantry and front-line combat roles in the ADF in the interest of ‘woke Marxist ideologies’.
‘The medical discharge rate for females is off the planet. Seventy to eighty per cent are getting medically discharged,’ he said.
‘Their hips are being destroyed because they can’t cope with the carrying of the heavy loads and the heavy impacts required from doing combat-related jobs.’
Young women were being ‘put on the altar and sacrificed’ for the sake of ideology, Mr Britton added.
Mr Britton has been swiftly replaced by former state MP Nathaniel Smith (pictured) as the Liberal candidate for the NSW seat of Whitlam
There’s no suggestion that Mr Dutton shares his former candidate’s views on females serving in ADF combat roles.
Professor Peter Dean, the Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, condemned Mr Britton’s comments.
‘These are extreme views and they are certainly not the policy of the Coalition or the Government,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘To take such an approach would undermine morale and recruitment abilities of the ADF and remove one of its strengths, which is its diversity and its need to reflect the whole of Australian society.’
Women currently make up about 20 per cent of people serving in the ADF.
Mr Britton has been contacted for comment.
