Student Rejects Politician's Apology, Calls It A "Paltering Piece Of Political Spin"

Calum Thwaites said he hopes to meet Labor MP Terri Butler in person at a defamation trial next year.

The defamation suit filed against Labor MP Terri Butler continues to rapidly escalate, with student Calum Thwaites rejecting her apology in a fiery six-page response.

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On ABC's Q&A last Monday night, Butler questioned whether Thwaites had actually written a Facebook post using the word "n-ggers" in relation to a dispute at an Indigenous computer lab at the Queensland University of Technology.

The student was cleared last month of writing the Facebook post, with a federal court judge satisfied with his explanation it had been posted by a fake Facebook account in his name.

He responded by filing a defamation suit against Butler, claiming the Labor MP had damaged his reputation on national TV by wrongfully linking him to the post and then days later calling him a "hypocrite" for his legal action.

Yesterday, Butler sent an "unreserved apology" to Thwaites, which made clear she had not meant to cast him as a "racist, or a bigot" on Q&A.

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"There should be no suggestion that you were responsible for the Facebook post, or that your denial was anything other than the truth," wrote Butler.

"Equally there should be no suggestion that you are racist, or bigoted."

"I offer you my unreserved apology for enabling those meanings about you to be conveyed, and for the distress and damage to your reputation caused as a consequence," she wrote.

BuzzFeed News has obtained Thwaites's most recent email to Butler, which opens with claims her apology is "a self-serving and paltering piece of political spin". The student says he believes the MP is "unashamed of having besmirched me with your deliberate and gratuitous calumnies".

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Thwaites says Labor "has, until now, always enjoyed my unswerving electoral support", because he has always regarded the party "as 'the good guys' (at least in the comparative sense) when it comes to looking after the down-trodden, the oppressed, and the 'little people'".

“Of course, I am not completely naive, and I fully understand that – as matters presently stand – it suits the Coalition’s political agenda to promote me as some kind of ‘martyr’, whose personal experience personifies all that is wrong with section 18C," wrote Thwaites.

"Even so, I have to say that I have been treated by them (even by such an unreformed right-wing warhorse as Senator Eric Abetz) with the utmost courtesy and concern for my wellbeing."

Thwaites ends his email by rejecting Butler's offer to hear the apology in person and expressing hope they next meet at a defamation trial next year.

"P.S. Happy 39th birthday," the email ends.

Asked by BuzzFeed News what the Labor MP thought of Thwaites' response to her apology, Terri Butler replied: "I think the documents speak for themselves."