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Anthony Albanese Blasts One Nation Candidate's 'Lazy' Single Mother Comments

David Archibald's comments were "incredibly personally offensive".
David Archibald's comments were
Ryan Pierse via Getty Images
David Archibald's comments were

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese wants Pauline Hanson to dump a West Australian One Nation candidate who called single parents "lazy."

In a 2015 Quadrant article, David Archibald wrote single mothers were "too lazy to attract and hold a mate, undoing the work of possibly 3 million years of evolutionary pressure".

"This will result in a rapid rise in the portion of the population that is lazy and ugly," he said.

David Archibald gives a speech in the rain in 2011
mmattjanet/Youtube
David Archibald gives a speech in the rain in 2011

Albanese, who was raised by a single mum, told The ABC Archibald should be sacked.

"I had an enormous amount of love and I have nothing but respect for my late mum, and I regard his comments as incredibly personally offensive, but more importantly offensive towards all those single parents out there," Albanese told ABC radio.

"The idea that if you have a single mother then somehow you're less of a human being really belongs way back in the dark ages and I find it incredibly offensive," he said.

The party appears to be sticking with Archibald for now, with WA One Nation leader Colin Tincknell characterising his comments in The Australian as "a bit naughty".

"It's not the end of David," he is reported to have said.

In comments to The Australian last night, he characterised the comments as "tongue in cheek" and said Mr Archibald had been "a bit naughty".

Inspired by Tony Abbott's claim that living in an outback Aboriginal community was a 'lifestyle choice', Archibald in his 2015 Quadrant article penned his thoughts on how other Australians live:

Single mothers:

"(Single mothers) are women too lazy to attract and hold a mate, undoing the work of possibly three million years of evolutionary pressure. This will result in a rapid rise in the portion of the population that is lazy and ugly. We know what causes pregnancy these days, so everyone who gets pregnant outside of marriage is a volunteer. This is an easy one for defunding."

On defunding the 800,000 Australians on the disability pension:

"OK, not all of them. But a good proportion are able to drive cars, bash police and each other, go fishing and so on. We often hear about disability pensioners because their active lifestyle resulted in a contretemps with another party, most recently the recipients of disability payments who have overcome their infirmities to take up arms against civilisation in Syria and Iraq."

On defunding federally funded childcare:

"This is a lifestyle choice. Looking after children is very labour-intensive. We evolved that way, with a prolonged childhood, to allow for synapse refinement in our big, energy-consuming brains. Some mothers elect to look after their children themselves, or do so because distance from a job makes work impractical. Mothers who do work are, in effect, cross-subsidising those who also leave their children to the care of strangers. If society wishes to encourage childbearing, it should reward that with tax rebates to the childbearing pair and leave it at that."

Hanson has sacked a few candidates in recent months after they expressed controversial views.

Peter Rogers was dumped over the weekend, two weeks after an article claiming pictures of Alan Kurdi's body washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015 was fabricated, as well as the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, were found on his website.

Another, Shan Ju Lin, was sacked in early January for anti-gay comments.

Another candidate, Andy Semple, withdrew his nomination after people within the party raised concerns about inappropriate comments he had made on Twitter.

Former federal One Nation Senator Rob Culleton was ejected from parliament after being declared bankrupt.

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