Election special No 16 – Darryl Moore, women and “illiterate animals”

The Age

Mr Abbott said he was not aware of Mr Moore’s comments.

“But obviously people shouldn’t make unsavoury comments,” he told reporters in Adelaide.

“I repudiate unsavoury comments by candidates, whoever they might be.”

The Australian (paywall)

THE Liberal Party is standing by a real estate portfolio manager who referred to his tenants as illiterate animals, boasted about evicting them by “forklift and dumptruck” and said he always negotiated harder with women to let them know he would not “play their games”.

Federal Labor yesterday called on Tony Abbott to disendorse Darryl Moore in the seat of Perth where he is in a battle to best Labor’s Alannah MacTiernan.

It has emerged that, using the handle Dazzling, Mr Moore made dozens of provocative comments on a property investment website in 2005, including that in negotiations “I make it a particular point to be extra tough on the women”.

“They absolutely do not like it when they realise I am unwilling to play their gameoes (sic) take an extra special effort to ignore the subtle ‘non-verbal and non written’ stuff that goes on during a negotiation,” he said.

“Just my way of ensuring I don’t get rolled by that particular and common tactic.”

On a visit to Western Australia yesterday, Workplace Relations minister Bill Shorten likened Mr Moore to the fictional rake Don Draper in the television series Mad Men, saying some of his comments were suited to the script of the drama set in the 1960s.

“Women should be treated equally in the workplace. Full stop,” Mr Shorten said.

“There’s a lot of progressive Liberals, I’m sure, who would be shaking their heads at these out-of-line comments.

“This isn’t just a women’s issue. This is a men’s issue. Why should men have their daughters, their sisters, their wives go to work and be confronted with attitudes that are 50 years out of date in the Australian workplace.”

Yesterday the Liberal party issued a statement confirming Mr Moore remained its candidate for Perth.

The Australian has been told there is no intention to disendorse him over what the party describes as “poorly-worded” remarks. Mr Moore did not add to a statement he issued through the party on Monday conceding some of the dozens of comments published on The Good Oil political commentary website were “open to misinterpretation”.

Yesterday the website published more of Mr Moore’s 2005 remarks, including recounting his tactics to compel a “whinging” tenant out of a house.

In earlier posts, Mr Moore likened court action against tenants to “being forced to get in the gutter with these illiterate animals”. He preferred a method he described as “forklift and dump truck”.

“(G)etting moved on from your supposed ‘home’, as you have no ultimate control over its life if you don’t like it or don’t want to put up with that set of circumstances you can always go and buy your own castle,” he wrote.