Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has dismissed suggestions the Liberal Party is aggressively seeking to recruit candidates with extremist views.
Some 15 candidates from both sides of the political divide have been dumped by their parties for various reasons, with some ditched for expressing extreme views on social media.
"We're not aggressively seeking to recruit people with extremist views ... those views expressed by some individuals have no place in our party," Mr Frydenberg said in answer to a question on ABC television's Insiders program.
"The Liberal Party that I joined, that I'm a member of, that I'm proud to be its deputy and Scott Morrison is proud to be the leader of, we are tolerant."
More broadly, he believed the political debate has become more toxic.
"Social media is contributing to that, with everyone having a megaphone. But there are also people in our community with quite abhorrent views," he said.
In his own Victorian seat of Kooyong, some of his political posters have been daubed with Nazi symbols which he said was a "criminal and cowardly act".
"It was an insult to all the victims of the Holocaust and to every Australian service man and woman who served in our armed forces against tyranny," Mr Frydenberg, who is Jewish, said.
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