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‘I won’t be taking lectures’: Perrottet

Dominic Perrottet has confirmed the Liberal has disendorsed one of its NSW election candidates.

Dominic Perrottet has confirmed the Liberal has disendorsed one of its NSW election candidates. Photo: AAP

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has said he won’t take lectures from former Labor premiers about damaging revelations he wore a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday party.

Former Labor NSW premier Bob Carr criticised the premier for wearing the costume close to two decades ago, saying it rendered him incapable of winning the upcoming state election.

“I won’t be taking lectures from him,” Mr Perrottet told reporters on Monday when asked about Mr Carr’s views.

“This is a former Labor premier who left our state with a $30 billion infrastructure backlog and put poker machines on every street corner.

“We’re still cleaning up his mess.”

In a post on Twitter last week, Mr Carr said Mr Perrottet was unelectable.

“I learnt Nazis were genocidal racists through history at a state high school, books from a mobile library and productions like Rise and Fall,” he tweeted.

“With a private school and heaps of privilege, how did young Perrottet miss out? Verdict: he is now unelectable.”

Treasurer Matt Kean said on Monday he would not challenge the premier for leadership of the party ahead of the March 26 poll.

He said the government was ready to move on from the scandal.

“I’ve been one of (the premier’s) most loyal and fiercest supporters,” he told Nine’s Today Show.

“What we want to see is Dom Perrottet lead the Liberal party to the election and beyond.”

Mr Perrottet will face cabinet colleagues on Monday in the first party room meeting since he revealed the costume scandal.

Mr Kean also lashed out at anonymous Liberal party sources who claimed there was a photo in circulation of Mr Perrottet wearing the Nazi costume.

“These horrible cowards should come out from the swamp that they’re living in to put their name to these horrible smears,” Mr Kean told reporters.

Photos of the costume did not exist, he said.

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party leader Robert Borsak has referred Mr Perrottet to police to see if his 2010 preselection declaration broke the law.

Mr Borsak said on Sunday he believed Mr Perrottet might have breached the Oaths Act by failing to reveal the costume incident in his statutory declaration to the Liberal party 13 years ago.

It is not publicly known if Mr Perrottet failed to declare the now-controversial incident because the relevant document remains confidential.

Mr Borsak hopes to use his position on parliament’s Public Accountability Committee to push for a probe into Mr Perrottet’s fitness to be premier.

“Robert Borsak has his own problems. He has relevance deprivation,” the premier said on Monday.

The move looks destined to fail, as NSW Shadow Treasurer Daniel Moohkey said NSW Labor would not support a referral to the Public Accountability Committee.

“It is clear that the Liberal Party is divided,” Mr Mookhey told reporters.

“The premier should explain why this seemingly has come from his own party.”

Labor leader Chris Minns has not called for his rival to resign and on Monday said he thought Mr Perrottet’s apology was genuine.

– AAP

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