Lidia Thorpe in clash outside Melbourne strip club
The Independent senator defends her behaviour after being filmed leaving a Melbourne strip club, yelling profanities and telling men they had small genitalia | WATCH THE VIDEO
Lidia Thorpe has defended her behaviour outside a Melbourne strip club, after footage surfaced of her yelling profanities and telling men they had small genitalia.
The former Greens turned Independent senator Thorpe claimed people were trying to “drag me down,” in a brief statement..
“It’s sad people are utilising whatever they can to drag me down when we’re trying to discuss important issues in this country,” Senator Thorpe said in the statement to Seven News and Sky.
The video shows Senator Thorpe leaving a Brunswick club at about 3am while celebrating a friend’s 50th birthday, Seven News reported.
She was shown shouting at men standing outside before being dragged away by a companion,
“You know what I say to you? You know what I say to you?” she said. “Small penis, small penis.”
A man off-camera can be heard calling Senator Thorpe a “racist dog”. She then yelled at him: “Any black man that stands with the f..king white little c..t like that youse can all get f..ked too.
“We’ve been repressed all our f..king life in this country and you let this little dog speak.”
The manager of the strip club claims the rogue senator was going up to ‘white men’ before the incident saying: ‘You stole my land’.
David Ross, general manager of Maxine’s, told Daily Mail Australia that Senator Thorpe’s behaviour was ‘just unacceptable’ and that she has been banned for life from the establishment.
It’s not the first time Senator Thorpe has been caught in controversy.
Last year she was forced to resign as deputy greens leader after she failed to declare her relationship with former bikie Dean Martin.
At the time, she said she met the former Rebels president through black activism, and they bonded over a passion for Indigenous rights.
In February, she quit the Greens after refusing to support the Indigenous voice to parliament, saying she would continue to represent the black sovereign movement as an independent.
Later that month, she lay in front of a float at the annual Sydney Mardi Gras halting the whole parade.
Last month police pushed her to the ground on the lawn of Parliament House after she attempted to take the stage at a rally organised for Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.
The Australian has contacted Senator Thorpe for comment.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek called Senator Thorpe’s behaviour outside a Melbourne nightclub “obviously unacceptable”.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a member of Parliament or you’re a member of Parliament or your average person, I think that sort of behaviour in public is just not acceptable,” Ms Plibersek told Sunrise on Monday morning.
“As for whether the Parliament should have the ability to intervene, I think that’s something we would have to consider very carefully.”
Senator Jacqui Lambie said Senator Thorpe should take responsibility for her own actions and says she is “part of the problem”.
“I think that when you are out that late and you put yourself in that sort of situation you have better take responsibility for your actions,” Senator Lambie told Sky News on Monday morning.
“There is no getting out of this, you are a politician, and sometimes we do muck up but not taking any responsibility for that yourself is not very helpful.”
The Tasmanian senator said Senator Thorpe should seek psychological help if she needs it.
“If you do not think you’re in a good way then go and do what the rest of us do and go and get some counselling... because quite frankly something needs to be done,” she said.
“But I would say this to Lidia, you cannot keep doing this and a good start would be you are part of the problem, take the responsibility of your own actions and take it into your own hands.”
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce says he is starting to “feel sorry” for Senator Thorpe.
“The first thing you have to look at is how the Greens actually preselected her. She is in parliament of course, and I have to say that Labor preferenced her,” Mr Joyce told Sunrise.
“I think that she has to have some serious conversations with a few people about how she is conducting herself and whether it is appropriate and how she gets into that position to act like that.”
Mr Joyce says it is not his view that Senator Thorpe should be kept out of parliament.
“I think once you are elected, you are elected. It can come with a whole range of other issues you can do within the parliament but the Australian people will kick out at the next election.”
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