Unrepentant Lidia Thorpe has hit back at the Prime Minister after he said her recent public fracas showed she was had “obvious” health issues.
Anthony Albanese labelled Senator Thorpe’s expletive-laden altercation outside a Melbourne strip club as “unacceptable” and said: “I hope that Lidia gets some support.”
Senator Thorpe responded late Thursday, accusing Mr Albanese of trying to “drag her down” and silence her with an “old racist and misogynistic narrative”.
“There is a history of white men in power using the media to attack and demonise Blak people that stand up to racism,” Senator Thorpe wrote in a public statement.
“Saying I need ‘mental help’ is a continuation of the old racist and misogynistic narrative used to discredit and silence outspoken and strong women, particularly Blak women.
“I am disappointed by the opportunism of politicians in Canberra – including the PM – using this to drag me down, but more than that I am heartened and inspired by the hundreds of messages of support I’ve received from every corner of the country,” she said.
“While the Prime Minister and others have used this to try to undermine my progress, I have been busy out in community talking to First Nations leaders about solutions to the problems our people face everyday.”
Senator Thorpe repeated the claim that she was provoked into the stoush by “racists” who were getting away with their behaviour.
“On Saturday night I was provoked and stood up for myself. No one was hurt,” she wrote.
“The story should be about the racists brazenly harassing a senator. The story is that I can’t go out without being harassed by racists. This is the racism blak people deal with every day in this colony.
“The racism that sees children removed at record rates. The racism that prevents the government from implementing the recommendations of the Blak deaths in custody report, that sees our people being killed by police, and that locks up our little children, some as young as ten years old, in cold prison cells.
“Meanwhile the racists are free to walk around and harass Blak women without consequences.”
The independent senator’s clash was filmed in early on Sunday outside Maxine’s Gentleman’s Club in the inner-northern suburb Brunswick.
“All I want to say to the black brothers there and anyone that we’re fighting,” she said, “any black man that stands with the f—ing white little c— like that, youse can all get f—ed too.”
In response to one man calling her a “racist dog” she said: “You know what I say to you? Small penis, small penis.”
One of the men asked “how the f— does someone get in parliament like you?”
Senator Thorpe angrily responded: “We’ve been repressed all our f—ing life in this country and you let this little dog speak.”
Senator Thorpe was leaving the club about 3am after celebrating a friend’s 50th birthday, Seven News reported.
She was shown shouting at the men before being dragged away by a friend.
Senator Thorpe quit the Greens earlier this year over a dispute about the Indigenous voice to parliament.
In April, she was pulled to the ground by police after intervening in an anti-trans protest outside parliament house in Canberra.
-with AAP
