A Tasmanian MP has revealed he has "a bit of a speech impediment" after a video of Labor MPs laughing when he mispronounced a word was shared on social media.
Liberal Member for Lyons John Tucker said in his own social media post that he had become aware of a video from Wednesday's parliamentary session, which showed "a few people having a crack at me in parliament as I struggled to get my words out".
The video shows Mr Tucker stumbling over the word "literacy" in a question to Premier Jeremy Rockliff.
"For those that don't know, I've had a bit of a speech impediment from the day I was born … just one of those things that runs in the family," he posted on his Facebook page.
"It's something that I know a lot of families deal with.
"[I've] been blown away by the messages of support I've had from people in our patch over the last couple of days, so [I] just wanted to reach out and say thank you to everyone who's made the effort.
"And to anyone who deals with the same kind of thing, life's not over; the world's not going to end — there's plenty of support available to help manage it. I'm only a call or a message away if anyone wants to reach out."
Opposition Leader Rebecca White — who can be heard interjecting "a good edu-ma-cation's a good start" — said she had spoken with Mr Tucker and "apologised for the way Labor and I responded when he asked a question".
'Generous' response praised
Speech pathologist Rosie Martin said the laughter was "unfortunate" but praised Mr Tucker's "generous response" to it.
"It was kind; it wasn't seeking to be blame-y or seeking to poke fun back again; he was generous about the fact that this is a characteristic that runs in his family," she said.
"He didn't need to do that, but he did, and he used it as an opportunity to extend support to others, and I thought that was really great."
Ms Martin said laughter was also often an automatic response to a surprising situation.
"I think anybody being fair to each other would recognise that any of us have laughed at a time when laughter itself might be inappropriate," she said.
She said Mr Tucker's stumble was "really typical of all speech".
"The very best speakers will have a moment where they might have competing thoughts, or they might have a couple of words competing for their attention as they're heading down the road of a sentence [and] planning that sentence," she said.
"It's really normal; it happens to everybody, and to me, it looks like what happened to John."
Ms Martin said it was important for parliaments to display and be tolerant of "all types of people".
"We wouldn't find an accent strange in parliament, [so] why would we find any other form of speech — where these little kinds of stumbles might happen or where there was a more solid form of impediment — something that should not be present?" she asked.
"I think we could become a lot better at embracing diversity in all of its forms, and when we find someone who is like us, we do find that solidifying for ourselves."
