Lidia Thorpe swore at Pauline Hanson after she muttered something under her breath in the Senate in the wake of a speech doubling down on claims she was sexually assaulted in Parliament House.
Senator Thorpe said she was ‘followed aggressively, propositioned and inappropriately touched’ by an unnamed man in a stairwell, where she said there was no CCTV.
Her claims come after Victorian Liberal Senator David Van vehemently denied claims levelled against him by Ms Thorpe on Wednesday, when she alleged under the protection of parliamentary privilege that he had sexually harassed and assaulted her.
She withdrew her comments hours later because of a parliamentary point of order, but fleshed out allegations about inappropriate behaviour against her on Thursday.
Senators Thorpe and Hanson in the Senate today as Ms Thorpe doubled down on claims she was sexually assaulted in Parliament House
She did not use Mr Van’s name as she tearfully claimed that she was ‘followed aggressively, propositioned and inappropriately touched’ in a stairwell, where she said there was no CCTV
During a portion of Ms Thorpe’s speech where she claimed Parliament House was unsafe, Ms Hanson could be heard saying, ‘oh, rubbish’.
At the end of Ms Thorpe’s sombre address, Ms Hanson muttered something under her breath that was inaudible from the Senate’s public gallery.
‘F*** off Pauline,’ Ms Thorpe responded.
Mr Van is going to respond in his own speech to the Senate.
Ms Thorpe told the Senate she was ‘disappointed’ in how Senator Van had reacted to her speech on Wednesday.
‘Instead of stepping up, taking accountability for the fact that he made me feel unsafe, he denied it.
‘He asked his lawyers to send a letter, the same lawyers who represented Christian Porter, this type of behaviour makes it harder for other women to come forward.’
One report suggested Ms Hanson exclaimed ‘Oh, rubbish’ when Ms Thorpe claimed Parliament House was not a safe place to work. ‘F*** off Pauline,’ Ms Thorpe responded.
She said she had remained quiet about the incident referred to in her earlier speech because ‘it was during the time Brittany Higgins had made her experience in this building public’.
‘I did not want to have anything taken away from her experience and her bravery in coming forward.’
The controversial senator began her speech on Thursday by saying she and other did not feel safe working at Parliament House.
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‘As all women that have walked the corridors of this building know, it is not a safe place.
‘You are often alone and in long corridors with no windows and in stairwells hidden from view where there are no cameras. This was my new workplace.
‘This is a workplace women in this building know.
‘I experienced sexual comment and was inappropriately propositioned by powerful men.
‘One man followed me and cornered me in the stairwell and most of this was witnessed by its staff and fellow member for Parliament.’
Ms Thorpe also claimed she had been approached by other staffers at Parliament House with similar claims.
‘We have a situation in Parliament where parliamentary staffers come to me to speak up about their own experiences of abuse, rather than through the formal channels,’ she told the Senate.
‘My testimony is one of action and resistance, every day in this place.’
Earlier on Thursday morning Senator Van told 2GB’s Ben Fordham he was feeling ‘battered and shattered’ by Senator Thorpe’s allegations in Parliament that he is a ‘predator’ who ‘sexually harassed and sexually assaulted’ her.
‘To have an allegation like this made against you is the most awful thing that’s happened to me in my life. I would feel less bad if she had accused me of murder rather than this,’ he said.
Earlier on Thursday morning Senator Van told 2GB’s Ben Fordham he was feeling ‘battered and shattered’ by Senator Thorpe’s allegations that he is a ‘predator’ who ‘sexually harassed and sexually assaulted’ her
The Victorian senator told Fordham he’d hardly slept, and was ‘a bit shaky’ after spending much of the night in tears over the extraordinary incident. ‘I just feel battered,’ he said.
While he was shocked when Ms Thorpe levelled the accusation against him under parliamentary privilege, Mr Van said this goes back to an incident in 2021.
He said Ms Thorpe raised allegations then ‘through her leadership to our leadership’ that Mr Van closely ‘followed her into the chamber’ one day back in 2021, and that left her feeling ‘uncomfortable’.
Mr Van said bumping into her in the corridors of parliament as they made their way into the Senate was unavoidable given the proximity of their offices.
‘At times I’ve been in front of her, at times I have been behind her, but at no time did I harass her… I barely even said hello.’
