A Queensland MP who simulated masturbation in state parliament has escaped sanction after a timely apology.
Liberal National Party (LNP) frontbencher John-Paul Langbroek was on Wednesday captured by chamber cameras performing questionable hand movements.
The Surfers Paradise MP pulled out the theatrics immediately after Speaker Peter Wellington reprimanded Chatsworth MP Steve Minnikin for provoking government MPs with other "hand movements".
Mr Langbroek later admitted, on a nationally syndicated radio show, he had forgotten about the cameras.
"I was just having a laugh," he said.
But Labor's Education Minister Kate Jones, who didn't see the funny side, wrote to Mr Wellington concerned how such disregard for a previous ruling reflected on the chair.
Late on Thursday Mr Langbroek rose in the House to apologise.
"My gestures were a light-hearted exchange between MPs and were not meant to reflect on your earlier ruling or any MP," Mr Langbroek said.
That apology appears to have brought the matter to an end.
Mr Wellington on Friday told Parliament in light of Mr Langbroek's clarification and apology, no further action would be taken and he would not be referred to the Ethics Committee.
LNP leader Tim Nicholls has said he would remind Mr Langbroek of appropriate parliamentary standards.
Friday's Question Time session, while dominated by debate and bickering about Labor's budget and the respective jobs records of each side, was noticeably free from any unsavoury miming.
Share
