Australian parliamentary party candidate quits over Facebook comment made in 2015

Joanna Nilson’s Facebook posts from 2015 were discovered by the Herald Sun. When asked to comment, Ms Nilson reportedly told the newspaper she did not author the posts then deleted her account.

But within hours she had resigned and apologised.

“I regret making these comments,” Ms Nilson said in a statement.

“While they were made several years ago, in jest online, and are in no way reflective of my beliefs or actions, I don’t want them to be a distraction.”

The Greens confirmed they had accepted Ms Nilson’s resignation. She had been preselected on the party’s ticket for the Northern Metropolitan Upper House region that covers Richmond and Brunswick.

In her 2015 posts, shared on the Facebook group Bad Gals Club, Ms Nilson wrote a how-to guide for stealing from the supermarket.

“Take a plastic bag full of other stuff put it in your basket and then load all the expensive stuff in that take it out and go through the checkout with that on your arm pop through a soda water … Bingo $70 of groceries for 70c,” she wrote, according to the Herald Sun.

She also had some less-than-pleasant words for Liberal MP Michaelia Cash, including that she was a “disgusting smug parrot”.

“A woman in the f***ing Liberal Party is like a Jew in the Nazi Party,” she allegedly wrote about Ms Cash.

When approached about the story by reporters at the newspaper, Ms Nilson told them she did not think it was a story.

“It’s not under my name so I don’t really have any comment, and I don’t think there’s really a story there either, to be honest.”

She later tendered her resignation.

The news is not good for the Greens, who have a real shot at winning several inner city seats, including Brunswick. They already hold several seats, including Melbourne, Northcote and Prahran.

Greens candidate Joanna Nilson has resigned. Picture: InstagramSource:Instagram

The Greens Party was embarrassed in March when the candidate for the Victorian electorate of Batman, Alex Bhathal, was accused of bullying staff.

A 101-page internal complaint against Ms Bhathal was lodged on behalf of 18 party volunteers. It included allegations the candidate for the electorate covering Northcote and Thornbury carried out a campaign of “systemic intimidation” and made “malicious and reckless false statements”.

Ms Bhathal denied the allegations. Labor’s Ged Kearney went on to win the Batman by-election, handing Ms Bhathal her sixth defeat.

Source: News Australia