Health officials in Australia said they had detected the Covid Omicron strain for the first time
This is a representational image

A senator from the Northern Territory intends to file a lawsuit against Senator Lidia Thorpe of Victoria in response to claims made at a Senate estimates hearing that the former embezzled COVID-19 stimulus money, while holding the position of chief executive of the Northern Land Council.

Senator Thorpe questioned the executives of the Northern Land Council at the time about whether a distant Aboriginal organization had received a $400,000 grant from them "to build a holiday house for Ms. [Marion] Scrymgour's family at Twin Hill Station."

Furthermore, she alleged that Scrymgour had attempted to utilize COVID-19 stimulus money for political campaigning, ABC reported.

"Someone at [the] NLC had to have a word to Ms Scrymgour about not using the COVID stimulus money to further her political aspirations," Senator Thorpe said during estimates.

Scrymgour called Senator Thorpe's claims "outrageous" in an interview with SkyNews.com.au on Monday. She then made public a comprehensive six-page statement refuting the allegations and revealing that she was consulting with legal counsel.

"In a Senate Estimate hearing on the 7th of June, Senator Thorpe embarked on a course of questioning in which she insinuated that I had engaged in corrupt conduct," she wrote.

"It is not the first time Senator Thorpe has been able to use Parliamentary privilege to launch personal attacks on me and my fellow Northern Territory Aboriginal parliamentarian, Senator McCarthy. ... Mud sticks. Once it is thrown, stories and rumors often get a new lease of life because of the further publicity that will usually be given to any response.

"More than two years into my term, I wasn't expecting that slurs on my character relating to my previous job would be deliberately weaponized by way of a clever combination of Parliamentary privilege and social media. ... I have referred the additional damage Senator Thorpe has sought to cause me through her social media forays to lawyers. I won't comment about it any further here."

Scrymgour has angrily refuted the charges, claiming that they have harmed her family's image, exposed her to prejudice, and tarnished her reputation. Even though Senator Thorpe's charges were made under parliamentary privilege, Scrymgour said that her attorneys thought she may be sued for defamation once the senator shared the accusations on social media.

"To then take that out and post it on social media means that she forgoes her parliamentary privilege," said Scrymgour. "[This] extended and aggravated her imputations, leaving no doubt as to her malicious, personal and political motivation."

As part of the public scrutiny during Senate estimates, Senator Thorpe defends her conduct, while Scrymgour prepares to take legal action against him for alleged slander outside of parliamentary privilege.