Bandt undermined by Lidia Thorpe and terrible misjudgments

The phrase “lack of judgment” seems to crop up frequently around Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe. She lacked it when she shouted a disgusting insult at Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes in the Senate. She lacked it when she abused an Aboriginal elder during a meeting, appalling her chief of staff. And she lacks it when she freelances on Greens’ support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

So the revelation by the ABC that Thorpe had a brief relationship with former bikie boss Dean Martin while she was serving on Parliament’s joint standing committee on law enforcement fits a pattern. She decided, despite her own staff strongly warning her, that it wasn’t an issue worth disclosing. She now admits that was poor judgment.

What’s more serious is that Thorpe’s staff told Adam Bandt’s chief of staff, Damien Lawson, about the matter and Lawson didn’t tell Bandt. Lawson has been “counselled” over that lack of judgment, Bandt said yesterday.