MP Catherine Cumming is under police investigation over her speech at a protest in which she called for Victoria's prime minister to be turned into a 'red haze'
Daniel Andrews said Victorians deserve "better than violent extremism" and US-style politics after upper house lawmaker, Catherine Cumming, told a crowd of protesters yesterday that she should be turned into "red mist".
Cumming, who is running for the Angry Victorians party in the state election, is being investigated by police for seditious behavior after he was filmed giving a speech at a protest outside Flinders Street station on Saturday afternoon.
"I joined the Angry Victorian party for one reason – to make Daniel Andrews turn into red mist," he told the crowd.
“In the army, we would call it pink mist, but I want it to be red mist. Give anyone here in the army a job to blow someone up, and they will do it.
Pink mist is a military term used to describe the blood that oozes from a sniper's target when hit. Cumming was in the Australian Army Reserve for 10 years, where he was a medic.
Cumming later told reporters his comments were a reference to the Labor Party "red shirt" scandal and issued a statement saying he did not intend to "conclude [sic] any physical harm to [Andrews] or anyone else".
"I can understand how some people might come to this interpretation, but I wanted to make it explicit that I did not want or call for any physical harm to Daniel Andrews," he said.
Speaking at Narre Warren South on Sunday, Andrews refused to take any interest in Cumming's comments, saying it was a police matter. But he said Victoria was "much better than this".
“We are much better than violent extremism. We have to hand that over to the United States. This is not America, and I will do nothing to contribute to the Americanization of our politics,” Andrews said.
“We give a positive and optimistic plan to the Victorian community and then it will be their choice. I will leave it to others to defend their actions, their statements, their preference agreements and indeed the behavior of their candidates. That's a problem for them.
Andrews' latest comments were a reference to Victoria's Liberal party, which has experienced a series of controversies over pre-selected candidates and preference agreements during the campaign.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy was forced Sunday to defend the Liberal candidate for Narre Warren North, Timothy Dragan, who apologized after Age reported on comments he made a week earlier in which he denounced Aboriginal confessions, climate change and abortion, and described a member senior parliament as a "puncture".
"He is not alone in the world for making such a ridiculous comment and he apologizes for the comments he made," Guy told reporters in Bentleigh.
“Some of them are not polite. I know they are not polite. I see what prints. He apologized for them as he should.
Guy also stood by the Liberal's country director, Sam McQuestin, over his handling of the pre-election of another candidate, Renee Heath, who is linked to the conservative City Building Church.
Heath was expected to be elected to parliament, given his top spot on the Liberal party's ticket for eastern Victoria, but Guy on Saturday said he would not be allowed to sit in the party room after the report on Age.
"I was not in the process of selecting a candidate but I implicitly trusted my party to do the job with the information they had at the time," he told reporters on Sunday.
Guy announced that if elected next week, the Coalition government will return parliament as soon as December 19 to repeal Victoria's pandemic laws and introduce legislation to some of the commitments made during the campaign, including to increase the stamp duty exemption threshold for first-time homebuyers to $1m and impose a debt limit.
He is also committed to introducing a new government app, which will allow Victorians to access their driver's license, Myki and other government services online.
Labor, meanwhile, announced that if re-elected, it would spend $584 million to set up 50 new low-cost childcare centers statewide by 2028.
It will also spend $159 million to attract and retain early childhood educators.
Victorians went to the polls on November 26, although a record number had voted early. This article was written by EDUKASI CAMPUS.