GREENS leader Cassy O'Connor has called on Tasmanian independent Senator Jacqui Lambie to apologise for an "outrageous" joke in which she compared the party with ISIS.
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Senator Lambie told the joke at a mining conference at Queenstown on Friday, using the speech to criticise environmentalists for their campaign against logging in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
"What's the difference between the Greens and ISIS? The answer is: Not very much! They both want to take us back into the dark ages," she said.
Senator Lambie named the Wilderness Society's Vica Bayley as a campaigner who "will never be satisfied until we're all living in caves, burning candles and eating tofu".
Ms O'Connor said Senator Lambie should apologise.
"To compare conservationists, environmentalists who are trying to do something to protect the place for future generations with murderous terrorists is outrageous," Ms O'Connor said.
"The mining industry should distance itself from those comments."
Speaking from Switzerland, Mr Bayley said it was "offensive to trivialise the murderous acts of ISIS".
But Senator Lambie said she would not be saying sorry any time soon.
"The truth hurts. There is a box of environmentally sensitive tissues on its way," she said.
"The only apology that needs to be given in this debate is by Ms O'Connor and her Greens to the thousands of Tasmanian workers who lost their jobs because of the Greens' extreme environmental policies."
A spokesman for Senator Lambie said she had made similar comments in Parliament last week, with Greens senators present, without much reaction.
"We could stop driving cars, stop using electricity, and go back to living like people in the middle ages — which is the vision that the Greens and Islamic State — have for the world," Senator Lambie told the Senate.