Attorney-General Selena Uibo slams Greens senator Lidia Thorpe for assuming she was a white man
Aboriginal woman and Attorney-General Selena Uibo has taken aim at a federal Greens senator who assumed she was a white male, because of new youth bail laws.
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NT Attorney-General Selena Uibo has taken aim at a federal senator who incorrectly assumed she was a white male.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, herself an Aboriginal woman, made the claims in Canberra on Tuesday.
“I do hope the Northern Territory Attorney-General – given he probably didn’t read the Royal Commission recommendations – hopefully he listens to these experts,” Ms Thorpe said.
“Hopefully they are white,” she said.
In a blistering speech delivered in NT parliament on Wednesday night, Ms Uibo took aim at the “outrageous things” said by the Greens senator.
“Senator Thorpe, the Northern Territory Attorney-General is not a white man,” she said.
“I am an Aboriginal woman, with ancestral lands in the Groote Archipelago and Numbulwar regions of the Northern Territory.”
“I have read the recommendations of the Youth Justice and Child Protection Royal Commission – many times over.”
It comes after a contentious week in NT parliament, with the government copping heat for its youth justice laws.
However, Ms Uibo used her speech to take aim at so-called fly-in, fly-out experts on youth justice.
“There is nothing more galling or frustrating than when a senator from inner city Melbourne visits the Territory for five minutes, flies home and then goes into the Senate to make deceitful comments about me, the work I do and the Youth Justice legislation this government is enacting,” she said.
Senator Thorpe’s office was contacted for comment, and referred the NT News back to the Hansard, saying there were differences between what Ms Uibo claimed was said and what was recorded.
The Hansard suggests Ms Thorpe referred to the attorney-general as a “he”.
“I do hope the Attorney-General — given he probably didn’t read the royal commission recommendations — listens to these experts. Hopefully, they’re white — and, you know, white is right in this place!”
Both the Federal attorney-general Michaelia Cash and Territory attorney-general Selena Uibo are women.
Ms Thorpe’s office was unwilling to comment further.
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