Former Tennyson candidate Ashley Higgins with Lord Mayor Graham Quirk. The boy's father had made a formal complaint to the school, according to the report. In a statement, the LNP said Mr Higgins had withdrawn as a council candidate and immediately resigned from the party. "The LNP has accepted Ashley Higgins' resignation as the candidate for Tennyson Ward," the statement read. "Mr Higgins has also resigned as a member of the party.

"The LNP expects the highest standards of its candidates and these standards have not been met in this instance." Labor state secretary Evan Moorhead said Mr Higgins' conduct, as reported, was "shocking" and showed he was "not fit for public office". "Mr Higgins' name will still be on all Tennyson ballot papers for this Saturday's election," he said. "Lord Mayor Quirk must commit today to take immediate action to disassociate his campaign from Mr Higgins. "Graham Quirk should commit that the campaign for Mr Higgins will stop immediately."

Mr Moorhead said Mr Higgins' election signage needed to be immediately removed and how-to-vote cards pulped. "Graham Quirk should apologise to the people of Brisbane for allowing this candidate to be selected," he said. "Mr Quirk should also explain how this could happen and ensure that all other LNP candidates have gone through appropriate scrutiny." Mr Higgins, who was initially pre-selected for the neighbouring ward of Moorooka prior to a redistribution, quit on Monday. His profile on the official LNP Team Quirk website had been deleted on Monday night, as had his Facebook campaign page.

It was a fillip for former Liberal Party councillor turned independent Nicole Johnston, whose chances of retaining the seat must surely have improved as a result. Cr Johnston, who holds Tennyson with a margin of 5.8 per cent, told 612 ABC Brisbane on Tuesday she was looking forward to being re-elected. She said the LNP had some "hard question" to ask, as to why the allegations surfaced only days from the election. "It's really surprising, Ashley Higgins has been through two preselection campaigns, he was first running for Moorooka and then swapped to run for Tennyson," she said. "I think the Liberal Party need to ask themselves some hard questions about why these types of allegations have not surfaced through those preselection campaigns."

There will be four names on the Tennyson ballot paper on Saturday, including Mr Higgins and Cr Johnston. Labor has preselected Stephen Harvey to contest Tennyson, while Gillian Marshall-Pierce was the Greens candidate. The timing of Mr Higgins' controversial departure could not have been worse for Cr Quirk, whose once-enviable popularity has plummeted during this campaign, according to weekend polling. After preferences, the polls showed he is just four percentage points ahead of his Labor rival for lord mayor, Rod Harding. Cr Quirk said he had not spoken with Mr Higgins about the scandal and the former LNP candidate's preselection was a matter for the party.

"The LNP do all reasonable checks and they are legal checks, but they only know what they are told and, in this case, there was information that has now come to light that was not made available to them at the time when they undertook preselection," he said. Cr Quirk said work had started on removing Mr Higgins' election material, such as corflutes and billboards, but that might not always be possible. "There's certain material that it's just too late (because) the arrangements were already in place with professional distributers and the likes," he said. "We can only do what we can do, but a lot of those arrangements were already in place. …The guy has resigned, we now move on." For independent news coverage, be sure to follow our Facebook feed.