An advertising executive and commentator is refusing to delete a social media post mocking the Queensland opposition frontbencher Jarrod Bleijie, despite being referred to the powerful ethics committee.

Dee Madigan last month posted a gif of Bleijie ripping up a piece of paper in state parliament with the comment “Your taxes at work. A toddler tantrum for @JarrodBleijieMP”.

Bleijie had at the time been arguing against a motion to speed up debate on the Labor government’s vegetation management laws so parliament could adjourn at its new “family friendly” time and avoid sitting into the night.

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After seeing the tweet, Bleijie complained to the speaker, Curtis Pitt, who referred Madigan to the ethics committee, because under parliamentary rules vision from the floor of the house can’t be used for “satire or ridicule”.

Pitt said his office also attempted to have the Twitter post removed.

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Madigan previously refused to remove the tweet when contacted by the clerk of parliament, and on Friday again tweeted she would be leaving the post up.

“If this is upheld it means no one on [social media] can retweet or share with a comment any parli footage, even if it has been on the news or streamed live or shared by pollies,” Madigan wrote. “The precedent on free speech is extraordinary. It is bullshit.”

The gif in Madigan’s tweet was from an ABC broadcast. She later shared tweets from Bleijie’s account from 23 August last year in which the MP himself posted an edited snippet of the clean feed from state parliament with the caption “I suspected @JoAnnMillerMP was going to drop a bomb, but I didn’t expect that!”



Madigan has previously worked on Labor’s election campaigns at both a state and federal level, and is a regular panellist on ABC television show Gruen, which looks at the advertising industry.



The issue of using footage from parliament for satire is not restricted to Queensland. UK comedian John Oliver dedicated a segment of his HBO show this month to highlighting similar rules in the British parliament.