Premier Steven Miles launches savage attack at LNP’s Ros Bates as huge twist in ‘close your legs’ stoush

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has taken new action in her stoush with the LNP’s Ros Bates, while Premier Steven Miles has labelled Ms Bates “one of the nastiest people in the Queensland Parliament”, as the “close your legs” feud intensifies.

Tensions between the LNP’s Ros Bates and Labor’s Shannon Fentiman have exploded this week.

• Houghton: Labor attack backfires

Premier Steven Miles has sensationally labelled LNP frontbencher Ros Bates “one of the nastiest people in the Queensland Parliament” and called on Opposition Leader David Crisafulli to “pull her into line”.

The Premier on Friday strongly defended the actions of Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, who earlier this week posted a video snippet of parliament to her social media accounts wrongly depicting Ms Bates yelling “close your legs” across the chamber during a fiery debate over Queensland’s maternity services.

Hansard records showed Ms Bates had in fact said “cross your legs,” which she claims referred to mothers being told to attempt to pause labour until they can reach an open maternity ward.

LNP frontbencher Ms Bates is now considering legal action against the Ms Fentiman, accusing her of inciting violence through a viral social media, which Ms Fentiman on Friday deleted.

In a statement, Ms Fentiman said the speaker of the house, Curtis Pitt, wrote to her asking her to consider removing the video while the matter was reviewed.

“This afternoon the speaker wrote to the Health Minister and advised while he is reviewing the matter, would the Minister consider removing a Facebook post,” the statement said.

“As the Health Minister respects parliamentary proceedings, all posts have been removed.”

In a huge development, Mr Miles on Friday has unleased on Ms Bates, saying she consistently has said awful things in parliament and “it’s about time she was held to account for them”.

“Ros Bates is one of the nastiest people in the Queensland Parliament,” Mr Miles said.

“Ros Bates consistently says awful things. She says terrible things all the time.

“And I think now that Queenslanders are starting to see that, it’s about time she changed her behaviour.”

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has launched a savage attack on the LNP’s Ros Bates. Picture: Tertius Pickard

The Premier went further, calling Ms Bates “immature, mean, nasty, and insulting,” before widening his attack to all opposition members, accusing them of misogyny.

“You will constantly hear a barrage of insults from the other side of the chamber, particularly targeted at women,” he said.

“If you compare the way they act when I am speaking to the way they act when women are speaking, you will see that they directly attempt to undermine, distract and interfere with what they are saying … ultimately that’s what Ros Bates was trying to do with that interjection and the person who should pull her into line as her leader, refuses to do so.

“Certainly some of their behaviour is misogynistic.”

Addressing parliament on Thursday, Ms Bates claimed to have been a victim of extensive cyber-bullying and threats following the viral video.

While the Premier acknowledged that no one deserved to be attacked online, he said it was simply “a very unfortunate part” of being a politician.

“Unfortunately, politicians receive messages like that every day,” he said.

“You could go to my Facebook page, or you could open my inbox and today there would be hundreds of messages like that, including death threats.

“It’s a very unfortunate part of this job.”

The video was shared widely across social media – including by Premier Steven Miles – despite misquoting Ms Bates, who records show said, during a debate about the government’s “failures” on maternity services, women were being forced to “cross your legs”.

Ms Fentiman took down the wrongly captioned video, republished it late Wednesday with a correction and asked her followers to again share it.

“Whether it’s cross or close your legs it’s still abhorrent, completely insulting, so if you have liked, commented or shared the video can you please do so again,” Ms Fentiman said on social media.

Member for Mudgeeraba Ros Bates MP during Question Time. Picture: Glenn Campbell

She denied Ms Bates’ claim she had incited violence.

In one voice message left with Ms Bates’ electorate office, an unidentified caller labels her a “f---ing dog c---”.

“I was just wondering how a stupid c--- like that can stand up as a politician … talk about women needing to close their legs just cause she’s the ugliest f---ing thing on this earth and she’s never opened hers,” the message said.

Another message on Ms Bates’ social media account said: “Clearly your abuser didn’t beat enough common sense into you.”

In a stunning morning that tested the conventions of parliament, Ms Bates said the video had unleashed a horrific wave of cyber-bullying and called on Ms Fentiman to remove them.

“I have received vile messages and threats of violence on my phone, my email, my social media, and into my office,” she said.

Ms Fentiman, in response, said Ms Bates had made very strong allegations that she had incited threats of violence against her, rejected the notion and asked the Opposition MP to withdraw.

Ms Bates refused and said, “I am a victim,” throwing parliament into chaos as the LNP screamed at Ms Fentiman for her “disgusting” and “absurd” request.

Speaker Curtis Pitt referred Ms Bates to the Ethics Committee, which has the power to force members to apologise or temporarily boot them from the chamber.

Former opposition leader and now water spokeswoman Deb Frecklington labelled Ms Fentiman “an absolute bully” and supported her colleague for refusing to withdraw.

Shannon Fentiman in Question Time this week. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

Premier Steven Miles backed his health minister.

“I found what Ros Bates said to Shannon Fentiman frankly gross and Ros Bates is someone who has form in this … if you look at all of the awful things she said about Shannon, she’s also said some pretty awful things about me too,” he said.

Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter said the fracas was about egos and personalities, with major issues put to one side.

“I think people in Queensland are much more interested in seeing how we’re going to solve problems than bickering in here,” he said.

Earlier, Mr Pitt issued a rare rebuke of members of parliament for increasingly refusing to remove social media posts that breach parliament’s strict broadcast rules.

The MPs have now been put on notice and told to review their social media, with Mr Pitt signalling further action would be taken if they were no longer deterred by the current “informal way of dealing” with the issue.

Originally published as Premier Steven Miles launches savage attack at LNP’s Ros Bates as huge twist in ‘close your legs’ stoush