By The Guardian (World News) | Created at 2024-10-24 03:15:23 | Updated at 2024-10-24 05:25:59
2 hours ago
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe appears to have backtracked on the suggestion that she deliberately mispronounced “heirs” as “hairs” when she was sworn in as a senator, now insisting she misspoke because her “English grammar isn’t as good as others’”.
Thorpe said on Thursday that it was “an insult” for the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and others in the Coalition to question her legitimacy as a senator when she had simply mispronounced the word “heirs”.
“I spoke what I read on the card,” Thorpe said in an interview with Sky News.
“My English grammar isn’t as good as others and I spoke what I read. So I misspoke, and to have this country question – or particularly people like Dutton and other senators from his party – for them to question my legitimacy in this job is, is an insult. And they can’t get rid of me.”
The comments appear to contradict what Thorpe said on Wednesday when asked whether the remarks she shouted at King Charles III during Monday’s parliamentary reception amounted to renouncing her affirmation.
“I swore allegiance to the Queen’s hairs,” Thorpe told ABC TV on Wednesday. “If you listen close enough, it wasn’t her ‘heirs’, it was her ‘hairs’ that I was giving my allegiance to. And now that, you know, they’re no longer here, I don’t know where that stands.”
But on Thursday, she insisted she had simply misspoken.
after newsletter promotion
“To me, it said, ‘hairs’,” Thorpe said of the affirmation she read when sworn in to parliament after the 2022 federal election.
“It starts with a ‘h’. So, you know, I was reading from the card. I signed the card. I was accepted into the parliament to fulfil my role as a senator. I’ve done a lot of good for this country that people don’t talk about.”
The opposition senate leader, Simon Birmingham, suggested Thorpe’s Wednesday comments raise constitutional questions about the validity of her service, noting that section 42 of the constitution requires an individual to subscribe to the oath or affirmation of office to be eligible to sit in the Senate.
“And Lidia Thorpe yesterday clearly made the statement and the claims that in making the affirmation, she actually didn’t do so in accordance with the constitutional requirements as annexed in the constitution,” Birmingham told ABC TV on Thursday.
“So what we see now is a circumstance that creates a doubt over her eligibility and validity to have taken up her seat in the Senate, and that obviously requires some careful analysis and consideration.”
Anne Twomey, a constitutional expert said because Thorpe had signed the affirmation document, her swearing-in was legal.
“That has the oath, or affirmation of allegiance set out in writing with ‘heirs’ spelled correctly and she signed it and it was witnessed,” Twomey told ABC TV.
“So she has actually made that oath in writing, and even to the extent that she might have mispronounced the word heirs by pronouncing the ‘h’, this pronunciation is not itself legally invalidating. She also referred to the Queen’s successors. So she has made an oath to the Queen and the Queen’s successors. King Charles is the Queen’s successor, therefore she has made an oath to him, both orally and in writing.”
Earlier on Thursday, Thorpe told Nine’s Today Show she was not leaving parliament.
“No, I’m an independent. No one can kick me out of there. I’m there to fulfil my job. I’m there to represent the black sovereign movement which is questioning the sovereignty of the crown. I’m calling for a treaty. I’ll spend the next three years getting that unfinished business done.”
