For all their self-righteous blatherskite about “integrity”, there seem to be few political parties quite as toxic as the Greens. Bullying, sexual harassment, boasting about drug abuse and shoplifting, massive corporate donations and, of course, endlessly fomenting open hatred and division.
It’s no wonder, then, that Lidia Thorpe is the very model of a modern Green.
And now her little black ducks have finally come home to roost.
Thorpe has been removed as deputy leader of the Greens in the Senate, after it emerged that she had an affair with the former leader of an outlaw motorcycle club at the same time that she was a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement – which was investigating outlaw motorcycle gangs.
For all that her leader is forever grandstanding about “integrity” and demanding that some person or other resign, for offending Green sensibilities, Adam Bandt has shirked, yet again, an opportunity to hold the Greens to the own moral standards they demand from everyone else.
Bandt had demanded and received the resignation of Thorpe not from her portfolio or committee responsibilities but as deputy leader of the party in the Senate, a largely symbolic title.
Thorpe remains the Greens spokesperson on First Nations, the Republic and Sport. She continues to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, a member of the Joint Statutory Committee on Human Rights and a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
The Australian
For now…
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement Chair Helen Polley has launched an investigation into whether any confidences were breached by Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe over her relationship with ex-bikie boss Dean Martin while a member of the committee.
The Labor MP has directed the committee’s secretariat to examine all previous minutes taken during meetings when the Australian Federal Police gave confidential briefings which had a “broad approach” to organised crime and motorcycle gangs.
The secretariat will flag meetings when both the Australian Federal Police and Senator Thorpe were in attendance, as well as instances when she was in attendance during AFP briefings on organised crime and motorcycle gangs […]
In an interview with the Australian, Ms Polley said Senator Thorpe should remove herself from all positions of leadership within the Greens and “seriously consider” whether the Senate was “really a place for her”.
The Australian
Many Australians have wondered the same thing. Especially as they’ve endured Thorpe’s appalling record of behaviour after being elevated, unelected, into politics.
[She] serially stoked the flames of racial division and resentment in her day job as a professional Aboriginal activist and rabble-rouser in demonstration after demonstration, including during the Queen’s mourning period?
Insulted the Queen – a revered elder of the whole Australian people in life and in death – and, in her mocking her own swearing-in, effectively spat on the honour of being seated as a senator of the Australian parliament while pocketing her very generous taxpayer-funded senator’s salary?
Reportedly insulted an Aboriginal elder, a senior woman, who had come to Canberra to meet her in her parliamentary office?
Spectator Australia
Bandt claims that, until just days ago, he had no idea who Martin was, or that one of his MPs had had a secret relationship with a bikie boss.
He’s not the only one.
A former partner of embattled Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe says he found out only on social media on Thursday that she had had a relationship with a Rebels bikie former leader, Dean Martin.
Gavan McFadzean took to social media himself on Thursday night following the revelation Martin and Senator Thorpe had briefly dated in 2021.
“When you find out via national media your partner was having an affair,” Mr McFadzean wrote on Facebook.
The Australian
All in all, a truly charming piece of work – just the sort of person to fit right in at the most toxic party in politics.
But, of course, it’s different when they do it.
