Disgraced former speaker Kezia Purick threatened to “personally knock” the Australian Christian Lobby “on the head” during a segment on ABC Radio’s Mornings program Thursday that has not been uploaded online, which the Christian group’s director says was a direct threat of violence against Christians in the Territory for their position on voluntary assisted dying.

Ms Purick, who currently sits on a non-partisan government tribunal paid by taxpayers, made the comments while on a panel segment confusingly called “the scrutiny committee” when the panellists were discussing the CLP’s announcement it will introduce Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation some time this year after controversially rejecting recommendations from its own report.

The NT Independent was unable to hear the entire radio segment as ABC did not post Thursday’s Mornings program to its website by the evening and did not provide it upon request. All other radio programs were uploaded throughout the day.

However, the Drive program played part of the segment later Thursday in which Ms Purick appeared to be publicly supporting the Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation despite her current position as a member of the Remuneration Tribunal, which requires her to independently determine politicians’ salaries and benefits while avoiding expressing political opinions.

“[VAD] is only choice and there will be scaremongering that people are going to be led to their death and doom and that’s just rubbish,” Ms Purick said.

“That really needs to be knocked on the head. And that Christian Lobby comes out again with that rubbish stuff that they did around last election….

“They really need to get, well, I will personally knock them on the head.”

While the phrase can be used to mean preventing something from occurring when used in relation to a subject and not a group of people, it’s derived from a farming phrase, meaning to kill an animal by hitting it on the head at birth.

Australian Christian Lobby NT director Nicholas Lay said in a statement that Ms Purick’s threats of physical assault represented “hostility against the ACL and Christian Territorians trying to speak up against [voluntary assisted dying]”.

“I know so many Christian Territorians that want to speak out against VAD but they are fearful that they will lose their jobs or suffer persecution,” he said.

“Ms Purick’s comments confirm this fear. If we are going to have a genuine debate about whether we should adopt VAD in the Northern Territory then comments like these are not on.”

It is unclear how Ms Purick intends to “personally knock them on the head” literally or figuratively given that she is no longer an elected member of Parliament.

Remuneration Tribunal chair Gary Higgins did not respond to questions, including why Ms Purick was publicly supporting government policies while a member of the tribunal that is tasked with independently setting politicians’ pay and benefits.

He was also asked if Ms Purick should continue in the role given her feelings towards Christians in the Territory and if that could influence her decisions on the tribunal or affect the tribunal’s crucial appearance of impartiality.

Ms Purick also did not respond to requests for comment. She has been featured on the Thursday morning ABC panel show for a number of weeks despite her non-partisan role on the tribunal.

It is not the first time Ms Purick has threatened violence against people with farm procedures. In November 2014, she called then-federal minister for families Kevin Andrews a “pooncy, pasty-faced person from some pissant place no one cares about” and threatened him with a “green rubber ring” used for castrating cattle.

Ms Purick had threatened Mr Andrews over his views on same-sex marriage, not for his role in introducing the federal legislation that overrode the NT’s first VAD laws in 1997.

Ms Purick was forced to resign as speaker in 2020 following the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption report that found she had engaged in “corrupt conduct” when she used public resources as speaker to interfere in the establishment of a new political party. She was also found to have lied to the ICAC about it during an investigation.

In early 2020, while knowingly under investigation by the ICAC, Ms Purick attempted to establish and sit on a parliamentary committee that would have oversight of the anti-corruption body.

Ms Purick also came under fire the same year for hefty liquor expenses she charged taxpayers while in the speaker role as revealed in an NT Independent investigation, including tens of thousands of dollars on bottle shop runs, and $100,000 for special dinner parties for herself and preferred social groups, over a span of three years.

She was narrowly re-elected to her seat of Goyder at the August 2020 NT general election despite the massive 23.9 per cent swing against her by voters and resigned ahead of the 2024 election.