The ACT Greens say blog posts written by a 20-year-old candidate, which included comparing Osama bin Laden with Jesus Christ, are "creative writing" and do not reflect her personal views, but acknowledged a failure in candidate vetting.
Harini Rangarajan, who is running in Murrumbidgee, undertook "a creative writing exercise to explore the absurdity of dying for ideologies. This piece is not reflective of Ms Rangarajan's personal views, it is fiction", the party said.
Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury acknowledged the material could be concerning and confronting for the community but said Ms Rangarajan would continue to be a candidate for the Greens and had been clear it was not her personal views.
"I hope they can accept her assurance this does not reflect her personal views," Mr Rattenbury said.
However the Greens leader acknowledged the party had not been aware of the specific material in the posts, despite the blog account being disclosed as part of the candidate vetting process late last year. That process would be reviewed after the election, he said.
"In that vetting process, these particular articles were not noted and identified. And so there's clearly been an element of our processes letting down our party in these circumstances," Mr Rattenbury said.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said what Ms Rangarajan had written was "not good" and said it was up to the ACT Greens to clear the air and settle the matter.
"I don't think it should stand, it should be taken down," he said.
In a reference to posts made by Liberal candidate Darren Roberts under a nom de plume on Facebook, Mr Barr said: "I do know the age of a candidate, a 20-year-old, is somewhat different from a man in their mid-50s with a serial set of social media posts that were almost universally offensive."
Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee said it was up to each party to manage candidate vetting processes but she was not yet aware of the substance of what Ms Rangarajan had written.
Asked whether it was hypocritical for Mr Barr to draw a distinction between Ms Rangarajan's posts and those made by Mr Roberts, Ms Lee said: "I think that whatever comes out of Andrew Barr's mouth, most Canberrans are starting to realise can't be trusted."
Mr Barr had said he would be as measured if a Liberal candidate was in a similar situation.
"I think there's a clear difference between mature men in their 50s and fake profiles and trolling versus a creative writing exercise or a person's journal," he said.
The ABC reported Ms Rangarajan had made a series of posts under a pseudonym, including one in which she compared Osama Bin Laden, the terror leader who devised the September 11 attacks, and Jesus Christ.
The Greens said the post was a piece of "creative writing" and "fiction" it knew about before Ms Rangarajan was preselected for the party.
"The Greens and Ms Rangarajan condemn terrorism in all its forms, as represented by Ms Rangarajan's longstanding activism for women's rights in Afghanistan," the party said in a statement.
"For people who aren't familiar with the references in this piece, we recognise it could be misinterpreted and cause concern in the community. We want to assure Canberrans that all Greens candidates abhor terrorism and its impacts."
The ABC reported Ms Rangarajan had made a series of posts to Substack, an online publishing platform, under the pseudonym "Sivagama Sundari".
A post called "On martyrdom" was published on August 20, 2023, and, in part, said: "I day dream about dying brutally for my country, my family, my lovers", the broadcaster reported on Thursday.
Ms Rangarajan wrote about a Hindu epic figure, the ABC said, and the Greens candidate further wrote: "I've gone on to idolise several other martyrs - Bhagat Singh, Husayn ibn Ali, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, Balachandran Prabhakaran, Joan of Arc, Osama Bin Laden etc."
The ABC reported the "etc" in the the quote was changed to "lmao", the acronym for "laughing my arse off".
The posts had been removed from the Substack account when The Canberra Times visited the page on Thursday.
The Greens said in a statement: "The content of this creative writing piece is not a personal account and is entirely fictional, exploring complex and confronting realities in modern history."
The party said it had an interview team who conducted a probity process on prospective candidates, including a police check, social media vetting and other background checks.
A report handed to members found Ms Rangarajan was a "suitable" candidate.
Ms Rangarajan on Sunday apologised after she was caught on a security camera taking a Liberal flyer from the front door of a home.
"This is a poor judgement call on my behalf, I shouldn't have done it. I apologise to the resident and the Canberra Liberal Party," she said in a statement.
Mr Rattenbury on Thursday said the election process was a stressful one for a lot of people.
"Harini's been very upfront in both her apology for the issue around the electoral material and she's been very clear about her values and her intent in the context of this article," he said.
"And I think people in the community, whilst they may not like this content, they may disagree with it, they may find it confronting - I also have faith in Canberrans to look beyond those issues and be assured by the comments that Harini has made about her values and why this piece was written."
