Defeated Liberal candidate Georgina Downer has defended her parents after they became embroiled in a social media stoush in the closing days of the Mayo by-election campaign.
In a Facebook post on Friday night, former foreign minister Alexander Downer criticised some supporters of the victorious Centre Alliance candidate Rebekha Sharkie.
Mr Downer, who held the seat of Mayo for 24 years, said they had brought "horrible hate to our district" before adding they "must all be new arrivals".
His comments were sparked by attacks directed at his wife Nicky on an Adelaide Hills chatroom page.
Ms Downer revealed on Monday that some of those comments were below the belt.
"Fair enough to play the policies and disagree with what I stand for," she told ABC radio on Monday.
"But the level of abuse was of a sexual nature, a crude nature, comments I couldn't possibly repeat to you on radio.
"Really, really, really personal attacks that were not at all constructive.
"My parents have been living in the Adelaide Hills for almost 40 years and they have never ever experienced those types of attacks."
Ms Sharkie said she did not see the comments and to assume they all came from her supporters was a "bit of a furphy".
She said if comments of a sexual nature were made "that's terrible".
"But ultimately you kind of need to have a thick skin in this game," she said.
"If you get on chat groups and you say things like, clearly you must all be newcomers, I think you need to expect a bit of a backlash," Ms Sharkie said.
The Centre Alliance candidate comfortably dismissed the challenge from Ms Downer in Saturday's poll with a 10 per cent surge in her primary vote.
She's expected to finish with about 58 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, increasing her margin by almost three percentage points.
Ms Sharkie said she was keen to get back to Canberra, vowing to both work positively with the coalition and also hold the government to account.
She said her first question in the parliament would be to secure a commitment from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he would deliver on the promises made during the by-election campaign.
Ms Downer said she intended to run again in Mayo at the next federal election and would nominate for Liberal pre-selection as early as Monday.
