Greens Leader Adam Bandt said Prime Minister Scott Morrison is putting lives at risk by agreeing with the Liberal candidate for Warringah, who lobbied to stop transgender women from competing in women's sport.
Katherine Deves - who was Scott Morrison's pick for the eastern Sydney suburbs federal seat of Warringah, apologised after she described transgender children as surgically mutilated and sterilised in deleted tweets from November last year.
Ms Deves, who is running against the independent Zali Steggall in the seat once held by Tony Abbott for the Liberals, is a co-founder and spokeswoman for a group that wants to limit participation in women's sport to those who were born female.
On Monday, Morrison said that Ms Deves raised important issues and he shares her views.
During his pre-election National Press Club Address on Wednesday, Greens Leader Adam Bandt said the Prime Minister's comments were dangerous.
Scott Morrison said he was backing those remarks because he was concerned about women. I mean, give me a break, Mr Bandt said.
Mr Morrison accused Bandt of trying to weaponise the debate and turn it into a culture war. Scott Morrison said this was an attempt to start a devastating culture war that has the potential to claim lives.
I won't be joining the Prime Minister in trying to prosecute a culture war when lives are at stake. Nearly half of the young transgender women have attempted suicide. He said that he can't afford another of the marriage equality debates, because people reported they heard their very right to exist in parliament because they were told they couldn't afford another one.
People's right to exist should not be the subject of election campaigns. On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Morrison was asked what of Ms Deves' views he shared.
Mr Morrison said Ms Deves had apologised and he supported the views of a private members bill put forward by Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler.
Senator Chandler is an outspoken figure who advocates for the participation of transgender women in sport. She put forward a bill that would allow sporting groups and clubs to exclude transgender women from single-sex sports, in order to change the Sex Discrimination Act.
The government doesn't have any plans for that to be a government bill, it was a private members bill, and I've told you very clearly what my views on that bill are, he said.
Old social media posts haunted candidates across the political divide at the last election.
In the year 2019 the Liberals had high hopes of winning Lyons.
The Liberal candidate was forced to leave the party after the ballots had already been printed after accusations of historical anti-immigration and anti-Muslim social media posts.
A Liberal review of the last election recommended that candidates be trained at candidate colleges in order to prevent embarrassing dissentions in the future.