Controversial Australian Senator believes you can’t be racist to white people
Rachel Lang
Featured Image Credit: Jay Kogler / Alamy Stock Photo. Leo Bild / Alamy Stock Photo
Independent Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe believes it's not possible for white people to be victims of racism.
In an interview with Melbourne's 3AW, radio host Neil Mitchell sat down with Thorpe to talk about her outburst outside a Victorian strip club.
During the interview, Thorpe told Mitchell: "We cannot be racist to white people. White people don’t fall into that category."
She also lashed out at Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had called her mental health into question after her altercation with a group of men outside the Brunswick gentlemen's club.
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When asked about the incident in a 2SM radio interview earlier this month, the Prime Minister said, as per The Guardian, there are 'obvious issues that need to be dealt with in terms of her health issues'.
He said: "I hope that Lidia gets some support. I think that that level of behaviour is quite clearly unacceptable."
But speaking to Mitchell, the former Greens Senator revealed she had dismissed the Prime Minister's comments about her mental stability as nothing more than a sad joke.
"I laughed at that," she told the 3AW host. "If Albo wants to know about my health, then I’ve been diagnosed with an allergy to racists."
She then turned the comment on its head to accuse some in Canberra of having issues with their own mental health as they had expressed remorse over Australia's brutal history with its First Nations people.
"I think about in the parliament each day, where I’ve had Senators cry to me because of their guilt of what white people did to black people," she said.
"I wonder about those people’s mental health."
She then took the opportunity to attack female Senators for their drinking habits during sitting weeks.
"I wonder about the mental health of Senators who are staggering around drunk by themselves – female – at night, where I have gone to their aid to make sure that they get back to their hotel safely," she said.
Her attack on her fellow politicians comes weeks after Thorpe was caught on CCTV abusing a group of men out the front of Maxine’s Gentleman’s Club in Victoria.
In her outburst, she accused them of stealing her land and accused them of having small penises.
When asked about it by Neil Mitchell, she responded: "So what? I was celebrating my girlfriend’s 50th birthday."
She added: “I said he had a small penis because what so-called man has a go at a Senator...as I am leaving. You have to have a small genital to do that."