WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill has threatened legal action against Nationals MP Lachlan Hunter over comments regarding an artwork display at Parliament House, which displayed the names of more than 18,000 children killed in Gaza since October 2023.
Hunter has been a vocal opponent of the event—which was supported by the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine group, which is co-convened by McNeill and Labor MP Dave Kelly—and McNeill’s claims that the display demonstrates children were killed in a “genocide”.
Hunter was suspended from Parliament for four days following an argument with the Deputy Speaker after making his remarks.
“I will always call out antisemitism in our community. For doing so, I was suspended from Parliament for four days,” he wrote on social media.
Speaking to the media after his suspension, Mr Hunter claimed “antisemitism … actually occurred in the courtyard of the parliament”.
He further alleged that the event organisers, Perth Doctors Medical Aid for Palestine, and the Greens had previously expressed antisemitic views.
“If you Google what they believe in, if you Google the rallies that they’ve been to, if you Google every single thing that the Greens in Western Australia and right across this nation believe in, it is all antisemitic,” he said.
Ms McNeill has now served Mr Hunter with a ‘concerns notice’—the initial step in defamation proceedings—demanding he retract his comments, delete social media posts and apologise.
Speaking to the ABC, Ms McNeill said she felt “like a line needs to be drawn”.
“It is not acceptable to make a horrific slur like that against someone, it’s incredibly offensive, deeply hurtful and it causes me serious reputational harm,” she said.
“We want to stop these kinds of intimidatory and bullying tactics against people who are speaking the truth about this conflict and about Gaza and about this genocide.”
