Ley doubles down on Joy Division T-shirt attack as Coalition MPs back away

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has refused to back down from her call for the prime minister to apologise for wearing a Joy Division band T-shirt, despite Coalition MPs distancing themselves from comments that have stolen attention from their policy messages.

Ley launched the attack in a speech to parliament on Tuesday, criticising Anthony Albanese’s decision to wear merchandise from an acclaimed 1970s band that took its name from a term for the sexual slavery wing of a concentration camp as inappropriate in a context of rising antisemitism.

After Nationals senators Bridget McKenzie and Matt Canavan said they did not care about what T-shirt the Albanese wore and others refused to back Ley’s criticism, the opposition leader declared she was right to raise the issue on Wednesday.

“I don’t take a backward step on my comments, and I don’t know that people realise that the prime minister, in wearing the T-shirt, was well aware of the dark history behind the words on the T-shirt,” Ley said. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Coalition industrial relations spokesman Tim Wilson had held a press conference on Wednesday about allegations that building firms had paid fixers to secure peace with the scandal-ridden CFMEU, but was repeatedly questioned about Ley’s judgment.

The member for Goldstein – an electorate with one of the highest Jewish populations in the country – said none of his constituents had raised the issue with him, though he hadn’t read all of his emails.

“The key issue that I’ve been focused on this week has been the egregious issues of corruption in the CFMEU,” Wilson said.

The MP had called a press conference to criticise Labor and the Greens for blocking an inquiry into the administration of the CFMEU, but Wilson ended it abruptly after questions continued about Ley’s comments.

Albanese wore his Joy Division shirt last week while disembarking a plane on his overseas trip. It generated minimal reaction before fermenting in right-wing online circles in the days before Ley’s broadside.

Ley’s deputy, Ted O’Brien, avoided backing Ley on Wednesday, saying he was not the right person to ask about fashion.

“I’m not going to continue to take multiple questions about T-shirts,” he told reporters in Canberra.

Canavan and McKenzie both dismissed questions on the issue, redirecting to the cost of living and claims of government inaction on antisemitism.

“I don’t really care what shirt he wears. I really don’t,” Canavan told Today, in remarks echoed by McKenzie on Sunrise. “I do care how he’s doing it for the country, and I don’t think a lot of joy is being felt by Australians right now.”

The government is yet to implement many of the recommendations from a report delivered by the envoy against antisemitism, Jillian Segal, in July.

Ley was criticised by some in her own party for her political judgment last week when she called for Kevin Rudd to be recalled as US ambassador after old social media posts where he criticised Donald Trump were raised in front of the president.

Liberal backbencher Jane Hume, who Ley dumped from the Coalition frontbench after her performance during the election campaign, labelled the criticism of Rudd “churlish”, after which Ley shied away from her demand that he be sacked.

On Wednesday, Hume told Sky News it may have been in “bad taste” for the prime minister to wear the shirt, but no one had raised it as an issue with her.

“I think wearing a T-shirt with a band name on it is a bit naff anyway, but I don’t like to tell people what it is that they should and shouldn’t wear,” she said.

Scott Morrison’s former chief political strategist, Yaron Finkelstein, said the attack over the band name was a lost opportunity to cast the prime minister as a man who tried too hard to project an image of himself as a music lover.

“Are Jewish Australians upset by [the shirt]? No,” said Finkelstein. “Cool Jewish Australians who like Joy Division’s music probably have a moment of internal conflict [over the name],” he said. But he noted that there were different explanations for why the band picked it.

“Let’s all settle down,” Finkelstein, who is Jewish, said.

Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor, who unsuccessfully challenged Ley for the party’s leadership following the election, called the prime minister “tone-deaf” and dismissed suggestions Ley’s leadership was in trouble.

Liberal frontbencher, Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, called on the prime minister to apologise on Wednesday.

With Nick Newling

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