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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Burch should resign over retweet: Libs

OPPOSITION leader Jeremy Hanson has called for Labor MLA Joy Burch to resign as ACT Education Minister after retweeting an offensive tweet about her federal counterpart Christopher Pyne. 

The post retweeted by Joy Burch.
The post retweeted by Joy Burch.
Ms Burch retweeted a November 29 post by a Twitter user which labelled Mr Pyne “a c–t” and suggested he was “smugly loitering” during a press conference by state and territory education ministers.

“Joy Burch has demonstrated incredibly poor judgement to describe the federal education minister in such a way. It’s unacceptable for Joy Burch to be in charge of schools and the education of children in the ACT. She’s no longer fit to serve,” Mr Hanson said.

“The onus is now on the Chief Minister to ensure Joy Burch no longer continues as Minister and I’m calling on Katy Gallagher to move swiftly to prevent any further embarrassment to the ACT.

“To be the minister for education, high standards have to be adhered to including the Ministerial Code of Conduct which requires ministers to act with ‘respect for others’. If I or Christopher Pyne had used the same abusive language describing Joy Burch, there’d no doubt be uproar in the media. How can this be acceptable behaviour from a minister in the ACT Government?”

Ms Burch has said she contacted Mr Pyne’s office and “apologised sincerely”, blaming “poor social media skills” for the gaffe.

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