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On Monday night The Guardian, reacting to Ms Liu's criticism of its reporting, released audio of its 2016 interview taken after that year's federal election, that contained the controversial remarks.
"The Chinese people come to Australia because they want good education for their children, good environment, they want good things for their next generation, not to be destroyed - they use the word destroyed - by these sort of concepts of same-sex, transgender, intergender, crossgender, all this rubbish," Ms Liu told the interviewer.
"To them, this is just ridiculous rubbish."
The story re-emerged on the weekend at a candidates forum after a question from the audience, with Ms Liu claiming The Guardian article was "fake news" and that she had been "misrepresented".
In a statement on Tuesday, Ms Liu said: "I reject any suggestion the comments reported in 2016 were my own views".
"At the time I was responding to a question about comments I had received from some members of the Chinese community.
"I firmly support equality across our community."
Julia Banks says Gladys Liu has exaggerated her involvement in her election success.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Ms Liu was a prominent activist against same-sex marriage and the Safe Schools anti-bullying program during Ms Banks' 2016 election campaign, mobilising the electorate's Chinese community through social media.
"My WeChat material was by me and my team and it was just a direct copy of my Facebook posts."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Ms Liu's comments had been taken out context.
"Gladys has led an amazing Australian life," he said
"Gladys came to this country in the mid-80s, she studied, she became a speech pathologist, she's raised a family here, she's built businesses, she's worked with her community.
"As she said, at the time when she was campaigning for the previous Liberal candidate and now the current member, she was simply saying those were the views of that community."
Ms Liu has kept a low profile since Sunday, pulling out of a television interview at the 11th hour after Liberal Party headquarters attempted to "restrict" Sky News journalists from asking questions on Ms Liu's LGBTI comments, according to the network.
Sky News' Thomas O' Brien tweeted Ms Liu was yesterday booked for an interview as part of a "Chisholm feature" on Tuesday.
Chisholm will be a hard-fought seat by both major parties, with Labor believing its candidate, Taiwanese-born Jennifer Yang, can regain the seat held by the Liberals by a notional 2.9 per cent following a redistribution.
The eastern-suburbs electorate was crucial to the Coalition winning another term at the last election as it was the only seat gained by the Turnbull government.
Sumeyya is a reporter for The Age.









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