Lidia Thorpe says she deserves an apology over ex-bikie claims

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• By Avi Yemini

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Senator Lidia Thorpe says she never had a relationship with an ex-bikie and only said that she did because she was instructed to say so by Greens lawyers.

The independent senator was this week cleared of wrongdoing after a Senate privileges committee found she did not disclose sensitive information from a law enforcement committee she had been part of.

The Senate did find that she should have disclosed her links to former Rebels bikie boss Dean Martin.

But Thorpe used the report’s release to insist that she had never dated Martin whom she described as “some black man” she once kissed.

Thorpe, who had to resign as deputy Greens leader, said she was forced to say that the pair were an item.

“For what? For a kiss on invasion day with some black man at a rally who happened to be an ex-biker,” she told the Senate.

“I didn’t ask for his resume.

“I had no relationship with that person. I was given legal advice by the Greens lawyer to say that I had dated this person.”

A teary Thorpe told the Senate that the decision not to charge her with contempt had vindicated her.

“All you people thought that I had been running off with some biker gang,” she said.

“What kind of person do you think I am? I deserve an apology, from the leader of the Greens for one, because I lost my position.

“I got mauled by the media, I got mauled by all of you in (the Senate) for something I did not do.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt told the ABC that he had handled the situation appropriately.

“The facts as we understand them are those that are set out in Senator Thorpe’s letter to the privileges committee,” he said.

The information in the letter is consistent with the information Senator Thorpe and others provided to us.”

Thorpe quit the Greens in February to move to the crossbench as an independent.