Katherine Deves sets her sights on NSW senate vacancy

By TILEAH DOBSON

Failed Liberal Warringah candidate Katherine Deves is looking to rejoin the political landscape and eyeing the nomination for the Liberal Party’s NSW Senate vacancy.

Deves had previously run for the seat of Warringah after she was picked by former prime minister Scott Morrison. Her past comments on transgender children came to the surface during the 2022 federal elections.

Deves had initially apologised for the comments, which included stating that trans children were being “surgically mutilated and sterilised.”

She later doubled down on her comments, stating that while her language could be “confronting,” she remains steadfast by the “substance of her arguments.”

Deves was later approached by senior members of the Liberal Party, who she said encouraged her to run for the vacant spot after the death of Jim Molan.

She told The Australian that she wouldn’t back down from her views, despite the large backlash she had received.

“Trans rights are men’s and women’s rights being renegotiated. I am on the side of not conceding unnecessary ground on rights hard fought and won by our foremothers over the past 125 years,” she said.

No place for bigotry

Despite having said that senior members of her party approached her, there is a high chance that she will meet resistance from other members of the party, including Senator Andrew Bragg, former NSW treasurer Matt Kean and former Member for North Sydney Trent Zimmerman.

At the time, Kean had denounced Deves’s comments, stating that “there is no place in a mainstream political party for bigotry.”