One Nation Victoria candidate apologises for slew of offensive comments about lesbians, Indians and Julia Gillard

A One Nation candidate in Victoria has apologised for a series of offensive comments including repeated references to Australian-Indians as “curry munchers”, comparing a woman in burqa to a bag of rubbish, and sharing an image calling Julia Gillard a slut.

The party’s candidate for Greenvale on Melbourne’s north-western fringe, Chris Moore, also made derogatory comments about lesbians and refugees and once posted that he “doesn’t like the way the new homo cleaner at work looks at me”.

One Nation Victoria has not disendorsed the candidate over the comments, which were made on his personal Facebook page between 2010 and 2012.

In a statement, Moore told Guardian Australia “these were unthoughtful posts I shared as a young man among close friends”.

“They don’t reflect who I am today,” Moore said. “Today I’m focused on doing the right thing by the voters of Greenvale, and giving them a strong voice in the Victorian Parliament.”

In 2012, Moore shared a picture of a woman and a child both wearing a burqa and standing between two full plastic rubbish bags. He then posted: “Haha spot the difference.”

Moore also shared an image of Gillard and the Home and Away character Alf Stewart. The image of Gillard was accompanied by the caption: “smash my box Alf!” The image of Stewart was accompanied with: “If I wanted a greasy red box I’d go to KFC ya slut.”

Moore also posted saying he “should probably stop shouting ‘Curry Muncher’ at the TV when I’ve got Indians living next door”. He also posted that he “wonders who does the dishes in a lesbian relationship?”

In 2010 he posted: “Just got the curry munchers to wash his car and pretty happy with the way it came up, looks like the boat people are good for something after all?”

Greenvale is a fairly safe Labor seat with a margin of 7.1%. It is held by Iwan Walters, a parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs.

The electorate has a large Islamic and West Asian population. It has one of the highest proportions of people born in the Middle East and the lowest share of people with no religion.

At the last election, there was a swing of almost 15% against Labor on a two-party preferred basis.

A Liberal party campaign spokesperson said: “Mr Moore will be last on our how-to-vote card in Greenvale.”

A Labor spokesperson said the posts were “reprehensible” and called on One Nation to disendorse the candidate and for the Liberals not to preference him.

“There is no place for racist, Islamophobic and sexist comments,” the Labor spokesperson said.

On Tuesday, One Nation Victoria disendorsed its candidate for Preston, Franco Guardiani, whose private social media account described Adolf Hitler as the “GOAT” and claimed that “importing Islam is making pedophilia legal”.

The party’s Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, said Guardiani was disendorsed as soon as the comments were confirmed.

“At a time when Jewish Australians are experiencing unprecedented persecution, we are appalled that these comments have been made,” Pickering said.

Guardiani said he was disappointed by the party’s decision to dump him but understood their decision.

One Nation also disendorsed its candidate for the seat of Melbourne, Matthew Collins, over now-deleted comments on social media regarding a number of issues including sexual consent and pornographic jokes. Collins has apologised for the comments.

It is unclear how these candidate’s personal social media histories were not detected during candidate selection and vetting processes. The party has claimed to have invested time and money into improving this process.

In Victoria, One Nation candidates must provide their personal social media accounts for vetting. They are also interviewed by a three-person selection panel including Pickering and two party officials.

The Victorian Liberals also disendorsed the candidate for Williamstown, Paul Lindemann, after becoming aware of social media posts he had made that were offensive towards Indigenous people.

The party had been under pressure by Labor earlier on Wednesday to drop him after the Age revealed he received a six week suspension as a junior basketball coach after allegedly calling an under 14s player “crap”.

“This decision follows comments and views expressed by Mr Lindemann about Indigenous Australians that have recently come to light and were not previously known to the party,” a campaign spokesperson said.

“These comments are offensive, unacceptable and inconsistent with the values and standards expected of Liberal candidates.”

The posts, seen by Guardian Australia, were on an account named after Lindemann’s yacht and featured photos of him and his family. In them, he describes First Nations people as the “most primitive homosapiens on earth” and perpetuated racist tropes about “half-breed” and “full-blood” Indigenous Australians.

Losing Lindemann just weeks out from the 28 November poll is blow to the party, which had hopes of winning the western suburbs seat from Labor, despite it previously being considered a safe Labor seat.

A Labor spokesperson said: “Jess Wilson stood by Paul Lindemann when it came out he harassed and intimidated a girl at under 14s community basketball.

“These were disgusting and offensive posts and this individual should be expelled from the Liberal party.”