The Australian federal police has said it is investigating whether independent senator Lidia Thorpe’s claim to a pro-Palestinian rally in Melbourne that she would “burn down” Parliament House has breached legislation.

Thorpe told the rally on Sunday: “We stand with you every day, and we will fight every day, and we will turn up every day, and if I have to burn down Parliament House to make a point … I am not there to make friends.”

On Monday, she said she had not meant the words literally and condemned what she called the “mock outrage” that followed them.

“My rally remarks were clearly a figure of speech – a metaphor for the pain in our communities and the urgent need to end genocide in Palestine and everywhere,” she said. Thousands attend pro-Palestine rallies across Australia as or

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