Lidia Thorpe says government purposefully censured her while she was on a plane

Firebrand senator Lidia Thorpe has accused the government of purposely passing a censure motion while they knew she was on a plane from Melbourne to Canberra. Her outburst comes after the Victorian senator was censured alongside far right crossbencher Ralph Babet after she interrupted King Charles with an expletive-fuelled protest during the royal visit in October. Senator Thorpe remained defiant on Tuesday, speaking to media while wearing a pendant that read: “Not my King”.

“I certainly didn’t lose any sleep over it. It means nothing to me. Except the fact this parliament and this colony will continue to shut down truth telling, and particularly black women who speak truth,” she told the ABC.



She also questioned why she was not given an opportunity to respond, stating that she was on a plane at the time of the motion. “The government knew that I was on the plane, the Qantas plane, I’m a single mum, I can’t just come up on a Sunday and prepare myself for the week, I have to fly on Monday morning,” she said. “I have a VCE child that needs me, I get on the plane like every other parliament sitting, I’m usually here on time, however, Qantas was running late, and I watched the Senate motion happening on YouTube on the plane.

“And that wasn’t a nice feeling to see that I was being censured via YouTube after I messaged one of the ministers to say, you know, I want to be there, and I wanted – I want to respond.” Senator Thorpe also promised to continue to protest and accused the parliament of being “complicit in the genocide of my people”. On Monday the Senate overwhelmingly voted to censure Senator Thorpe 46 votes to 12, in the largely symbolic measure.

The government’s leader of the Senate Penny Wong said the motion was moved “reluctantly”. “These are actions which seek to incite outrage and grievance, actually to boost their own profiles, and this is part of a trend that we do see internationally, but quite frankly we don’t need here in Australia,” the Foreign Minister said. “We should deny them the attention they seek, but in doing so, we should also signal the upholding of standards.

” Meanwhile, Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said the move was a “disgrace” and accused the chamber of punishing Senator Thorpe “for telling the truth about invasion, dispossession and the genocide of First Nations people in this country”..