A Brisbane councillor has offered a boba-laden olive branch to One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson, following a spat over comments made during the recent Queensland election campaign.
Labor councillor Emily Kim distributed emails during the election campaign that criticised the LNP for preferencing “racists like One Nation” over Labor in the state electorate of Stretton, which overlaps with Kim’s Calamvale Ward.
Kim revealed she had received “a very random letter” from lawyers representing Hanson and One Nation, threatening to sue Kim for “racial vilification and bias as against the senator and her political party”.
Councillor Emily Kim offered Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson a free bubble tea (seconded by local vendor Tea 365) and tour of Brisbane’s Calamvale ward to defuse tensions.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen; Facebook
“I didn’t think it would blow up like this,” Kim said today.
She said she “thought it was a troll”, when one constituent threatened to forward her email to party leader Hanson.
The letter demanded Kim submit a “written, half page withdrawal in both The Courier-Mail and The Australian” within 14 days of the 25 October.
Kim said she was not concerned about the threatened lawsuit, as her legal representation had found the letter was “quite incompetent” and even got her name wrong.
“There were grammatical errors … they called me Emily Ward, as well,” Kim said on Tuesday.
Kim added Hanson would be “more than welcome to pop on down to Calamvale” and hash out any differences.
“I’ll shout her a bubble tea,” she said.
“We can go around all the local schools [and] she can meet all the multicultural students who are proudly singing the Australian anthem, like I did growing up.”
Kim said today that a local mobile bubble tea vendor, Tea 365, had offered to “do the honour” of hosting the two Australian politicians.
“We would like to provide the special service,” said the shop owner, Paddy Zhang, on Kim’s Facebook page.
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