Federal Liberal Party apologises for sexually explicit images shared on social media after accounts ‘hacked'
The federal Liberal Party has apologised after sexually explicit images were posted to its social media accounts late last night.
Multiple images of large-breasted women in borderline see-through bikinis were posted as stories on the Liberal Party's Instagram and Facebook accounts around midnight last night.
One of the images was of a Brunette woman wearing a cowboy hat and a pink bikini with the caption '30 viral & weird photos that you can find online' separating it from a second lewd image that was cut off.
Another is of a blonde woman in a white see-through bikini with 'before' in large letters, and at the bottom of the post was the start of a second image with 'after' written in Green.
The images appear to be AI-generated.
The Liberal Party's federal secretariat said the images had been posted after their accounts were hacked.
'Overnight, the social media account of a contractor used by the Party was hacked leading to the posting of unauthorised material on the Liberal Party's Meta accounts at around midnight,' a Liberal Party spokesperson told SkyNews.com.au.
'All material was removed within 10 minutes of it being posted and the matter was urgently raised with the Australian Cyber Security Centre and with Meta overnight.
'We apologise for any offence caused.'
It is unclear how many of the 360,000 people who follow the pages viewed the images, but screenshots of the images were taken and shared by other social media accounts.
'I'm not sure this is what Sussan Ley meant when she said at the National Press Club yesterday that women will be prominent in the party,' one social media user said on X.
The posts come less than a day after new leader Sussan Ley gave a major press club address in which she addressed the party's need to attract more women.
Describing herself as a 'zealot' for increasing the number of women in the Liberal Party, Ms Ley said she would work with every state division of the Liberal Party to 'ensure we preselect more women for the 2028 election'.
'As the first woman leader of our federal party, let me send the clearest possible message: we need to do better, recruit better, retain better and support better,' she said.
Shadow Minister for Cyber Security Melissa Price said this 'demonstrates that no one is beyond being hacked, not even political parties.'
"I refer to the Liberal Party's statement that the unauthorised content was removed within 10 minutes and I trust the party will take measures to ensure this does not happen again".
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