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AAP
AAP
Politics
Callum Godde

Vic Greens MP handed parliament ban after protest photo

Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri has been suspended from Victoria's Parliament for a week. (James Ross/AAP PHOTOS)

A Victorian Greens MP has been banished from parliament after refusing to apologise for photographing a protest that disrupted Question Time.

Three young climate protesters unfurled banners and began chanting in lower house question time on Tuesday. 

Protective services officers removed the trio from the public gallery and the chamber was cleared before Question Time resumed. 

Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri took a smiling photo of herself and party colleagues with the protesters in the background and posted it to social media.

"Courageous school strikers demanding and end to coal and gas and a safe climate future," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

"When the future of the planet is at stake, business as usual is no longer tenable." 

It is against parliament rules to take photos from the floor of either chamber.

Speaker Maree Edwards said a ruling of the chair reminds members that publishing photos of protest events in the gallery on social media could be seen as encouraging disruptions to the house.

"I do not suggest that the member for Richmond was involved in yesterday's protest at all," she told the house.

"Only that taking and posting the picture was in breach of the prohibition of photography and that it may have the net result of encouraging disruptions in the chamber and compromising parliamentary proceedings."

Ms Edwards offered Ms de Vietri an opportunity to apologise but she refused before the lower house voted to suspend her without pay for the rest of the sitting week.

"My understanding was that I had not done anything wrong and I stand by my support of the school students who are striking for a climate-safe future," she told reporters at parliament.

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