Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you claim to have been misrepresented?

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Most grievously, Mr Speaker.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 19 June, that erstwhile publication, the Brisbane Times, reported a doorstop by the soon-to-be-former Premier of Queensland, Steven Miles. I quote Mr Miles as saying "Keith Pitt … just said on [ABC] Radio National. He said he understands why David Crisafulli has to lie right now to win an election. That's their words, not mine," Miles said.

I didn't say that. In fact, the publication said:

It's not actually the words of Pitt.

To put it on the record, what I said on the program was this:

Keith Pitt: "The Queensland LNP—their members and at multiple state conferences and state councils—have supported proposals for nuclear-powered electricity generation … Look, I can understand David Crisafulli's concerns. He is trying to take the LNP into the government for, you know, only the second term in more than 30 years in Queensland. So, he [is a] cat on a hot tin roof, I get all that."

Host, Patricia Karvelas: "Sorry to interrupt—

That's not unusual!—

but he's made the decision that this is not going to fly in Queensland. That's why he's opposing it, right?"

KP: "Well, at a federal level, our job is to make decisions in the national interest … but I'm not the leader of the state opposition, those policies are up to David Crisafulli."

So if Premier Miles wants to make assertions, he'd want to make them on facts, not fiction. You cannot make up your own facts! He should get back to worrying about ambulance ramping, hospitals that can't provide services and other things that the Queensland people need.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal statement.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you claim to have been misrepresented?

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I do.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may proceed.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday 7 June 2024, Senator Thorpe used the cover of parliamentary privilege to raise a number of allegations about me, essentially insinuating that I had engaged in corrupt conduct—not in relation to my work as a politician but in relation to my previous job. I should point out that I had effectively finished up in that job long before the last federal election. My last day acting as CEO of the Northern Land Council was 15 July 2021.

The insinuations against me were made in a theoretical and hectoring manner in Senate estimates hearings. In the course of questioning senior staff members of the Northern Land Council, statements masquerading as questions made imputations which were clearly aimed at damaging my reputation. They wrongly attributed to me conduct which I deny. I have not been allowed anywhere near sufficient time just now to go through the content and context of those denials, but I have set them out in a response statement document which I am releasing publicly.

I am not the only NT female Aboriginal politician who has been irresponsibly targeted in this way by Senator Thorpe. It is not the first time she has made gratuitously false allegations relating to me under the protection of parliamentary privilege. This time Senator Thorpe has gone beyond just speaking about me in the Senate or in a parliamentary committee. Once she had finished her participation in the formal proceedings of her committee, she went online to a number of social media platforms and sent out a personal broadcast of her attack—questioning accompanied by self-congratulatory comments. These comments extended and aggravated her imputations, leaving no doubt as to her malicious personal and political motivation.

Senator Thorpe does not respect the institution of parliament and what it stands for, but she is happy to use it to attack people who she sees as her political opponents, especially when they are other First Nations women. What I don't expect is to have one aspect of the system deliberately weaponised through social media in relation to something which has nothing to do with my performance as an elected member and by someone who seeks to augment her First Nations identity and credentials by claiming association and relationship with Aboriginal Territorians. She has nothing to do with us.

I have engaged lawyers in relation to the social media post. Thank you, Speaker.