The Liberal candidate for the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, Jacinta Price, is again under fire for using social media to post anti-Islamic content, and for dismissing an Aboriginal man for being “white”.

Price’s remarks surfaced following similarly offensive comments directed at her by a Greens candidate, during increasingly bitter campaigning in the federal election.

This week, Price called for the Greens’ George Hanna, who is also Indigenous, to stand down after he shared a post on social media describing her as a “coconut” – a highly offensive term implying an Aboriginal person is “white on the inside”.

Hanna later apologised, but Price said the Greens were guilty of racism and sexism, and he should be disendorsed.

Price told the Australian this week that “what [Greens leader Richard] Di Natale has endorsed is exactly what I campaign against, which is Aboriginal people attacking one another”.

“It’s a put-down based on race, and it needs to be called out just like any other slur based on race,” she said.

However, Price’s critics have said she has used similar terms herself.

Steve Hodder Watt is a Lardil man from Mornington Island who has lived in Alice Springs for more than 30 years. On Thursday, Watt, who uses the name Bunbajee on Twitter, published private messages he said Price sent him in 2016, calling him and his mother “white”.

What did Jacinta Price, the #CLP candidate for Lingiari say on Sky News:

‘Anyone who was prepared to racially vilify another person was not fit enough to stand as a representative of all Australians’

Well whose turn is it now? #NTVotes #AUSVote19 pic.twitter.com/IPKrIqoWPk — Bunbajee ❤️💛🖤 (@Bunbajee) May 9, 2019

“We’ve both got a non-Indigenous parent,” Watt told Guardian Australia. “At the end of the day it could be seen that we’re trying to strive for the same things, which is the betterment of Aboriginal people, but we’ve got totally polar opposite political views about how that’s achieved.

“The Facebook post that was shared by the Greens candidate was highly offensive and I don’t subscribe to those terms ,” he said. “Criticise candidates for what they stand for, not who they are.

“We talk about the question of indigeneity, of Aboriginal identity, and that always belongs to the individual. That shouldn’t be a question for others.”

Watt said he shared the messages because he found Price’s stance “hypocritical”.

“How can you call for someone else to resign when you’ve done virtually exactly the same thing?”

Price also criticised the ABC this week for a “malicious hit piece”, which said she posted anti-Islamic material on her personal Facebook page in 2014.

“Ms Price has long campaigned against the use of religion or culture to justify violence against women and this was the only motivation for sharing an al-Jazeera interview of Dr Sultan five years ago on her private Facebook page – nothing more, and nothing less,” a spokesman for Price said in response.

“More disturbingly, the ABC is sending a message to all Australians that it is acceptable to use religion or culture to justify horrific violence and abuse against women.”

However, new evidence emerged on Friday that anti-Islamic content appeared on Price’s personal Facebook page on 26 March, during the election campaign.

The post, incorrectly describing the Muslim headscarf as a “hajib”, showed a woman whose face had been brutally disfigured, with the words: “To all you liberals welcoming Muslims and their Sharia laws. Ladies this is what happens when you refuse to wear your hajib.”

It was shared without comment or endorsement from Price’s personal account, where she used the name Nampin MacGregor.

Another post from her public account in 2016 makes a connection between sharia law and Aboriginal cultural traditions.

“It is blatantly apparent that sharia law and certain Islamic teachings are the key reasons making life hard for Muslim women. Much like what goes on in my own culture, the laws that have existed for thousands of years do not uphold human rights, which were only recently invented by the west,” Price wrote.

Watt said that while he could never support racial slurs, he could understand “the frustration expressed by Aboriginal people that demonising First Nations cultures and activism undermines much of what has been achieved and makes it more difficult to enhance empowerment and self determination”.

The Country Liberal party and Price did not respond to requests for comment.