'I was born here': Election candidate denies racist claims after street rant caught on video
An irate independent candidate filmed unleashing a ‘racist’ rant against two African men in Melbourne claims she was defending herself on the street.
Former One Nation and Palmer United Party candidate Teresa van Lieshout was filmed shouting and pointing at the men in the inner Melbourne suburb of Northcote on Wednesday night.
According to NITV, the Voter Rights Party candidate for Cooper in Melbourne’s north tells the men they must respect her “because I was born here”.
The confrontation was filmed by Rikefe Ohwofi after Ms van Lieshout allegedly bumped into him and his friend, NITV reports.
But she has rubbished those claims, telling Yahoo News Australia the men refused to move out of her way.
“I was walking down High Street and on the footpath away from the pre-poll when these two really tall men were walking directly towards me and wouldn’t get out of my way,” she said.
“I said, ‘please get out of my way’, I was busy and a bit stressed.
“They started abusing me and swearing at me and insulting me and calling me all sorts of disgusting names and said I was racist but I said nothing about the colour of their skin and ethnicity.”
Mr Ohwofi told NITV he was looking as his feet when she “sort of barged through me”.
He claims she said, “get out of my way, get out of my country”.
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But Ms van Lieshout says she had never publicly degraded anybody based on their ethnicity.
“Because they were abusing me and insulting me I got upset,” she told Yahoo News.
‘You’re voting for Liberal or Labor so we can be murdered’
The candidate is heard on the video asking the men if they’re a Christian before they reply, “what’s that got to do with you?”.
“Because I’m an Australian-born teacher and I’m in the federal election,” she says.
One of the men can be heard calling her a “racist idiot” before she says: “You’re here to vote for Liberal or Labor so we can be murdered. Foreigners are brought here for votes so that Australian-born citizens can be murdered.”
The candidate then tells the men they have to respect her.
“Why do I have to respect you?” one of the men asks.
“Because I was born here and I’m a teacher,” she responds.
She then asks the men what country they are from and unleashes further when they say it doesn’t matter.
“If I go to your country and destroy your rights, what do you say about that?” she says.
“I’m going to go to your country and destroy all your people’s rights and make you all unemployed, homeless and drugged.
“How would you like that? That’s what those politicians are doing to my people.”
A passerby then tells Ms van Lieshout she should be ashamed of herself because “she’s a racist”.
“We’re being murdered lady,” the candidate responds.
Ms van Lieshout said she had since watched the video and believes she was measured during the confrontation.
“I was really upset. I was on my way somewhere. I’m a teacher, I was born here, I’m in the federal election and I get abused,” she said.
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