Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has refused to rule out exploring legislative options ahead of a referendum if it could expedite the government’s commitment to truth-telling and treaty, as support for the government’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament loses steam.
“The Greens want truth and treaty to be taken as seriously as the Voice and called for $161 million to be put towards this in the last budget,” Thorpe told Crikey.
“Other matters that we’ve put on the table in our negotiations with Labor include enacting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, keeping kids out of prison, and making Medicare available in prisons. This would save peoples lives, before any referendum.”
Thorpe, who also speaks for the Greens on First Nations issues, has said she does not support the No campaign, but that a referendum on constitutional recognition would be a “waste of money” better spent in Indigenous communities.
Thorpe said the Greens plan to announce their position in the coming weeks in a bid to ensure the government “does not undermine First Peoples sovereignty” through constitutional reform.
Thorpe joins organisers of Invasion Day rallies in each of Australia’s capital cities tomorrow in calling for “treaty before Voice”. Thousands are expected to gather for an annual reminder of the ongoing impacts of British colonisation.
Thorpe’s public position, which is informed by her party’s First Nations network known as the “Blak Greens”, is that she would like to see the core tenets of the Uluru Statement From the Heart play out with truth-telling and treaty coming first, followed by a Voice. The same order has been adopted by the Greens as party policy.
Those in favour of reordering the Uluru Statement, or the formation of a Makarrata commission, often argue that doing so is crucial to their connection to land, retaining sovereignty, and securing critical legislative power. The Greens want to introduce a $250 million truth and justice commission as a step before treaty, with the aim of “exploring, understanding and reckoning” with Australia’s colonial past.
The party’s push for treaty, a legal agreement between First Nations peoples and governments, would begin with consultation, and then inform how First Nations peoples are represented to and in Parliament.
“We don’t need a referendum to have nine additional Senate seats in this place. It can happen through a piece of legislation, because the constitution in this country allows for extra Senate seats without going to a referendum,” Thorpe said.
“We can actually achieve independent First Nations seats — nine of them, with real power — as well as legislating a treaty, without going through the cost and the process of a referendum, which we know in the history of this country referendums don’t get up too often.”
Signs of recent public fractures over a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament emerged in 2017, when Thorpe as one of at least seven delegates from Victoria and Dubbo walked out of the Referendum Council’s talks on constitutional recognition.
The group said signing up to a Voice to Parliament risked the preservation of First Nations sovereignty. “We won’t sell out our mob,” they told reporters.
When asked what she would say to voters who want to be sure they’re voting in the best interests of a consensus formed by Indigenous leaders from across the country, and think that the Uluru Statement is the most solid consensus they’ve seen yet, Thorpe said: “First Nations people have been fighting for treaty for decades.
“It’s what our elders have marched for, it’s been on banners at protests. It’s what we were promised by Bob Hawke’s Labor government in the ’80s and it’s still unfinished business today.
“Delegates at the Yulara Convention were selected, not democratically elected by the people.”
Growing calls for truth and treaty to come before a constitutionally enshrined Voice have added to the headwinds faced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he looks to send voters to the polls for a referendum later this year.
The calls intensified after Albanese said the framework would be “subservient” to Parliament.
Since the beginning of the calendar year, he has faced almost daily challenges from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to provide detail. Last week he called on Labor to first legislate the framework before taking it to a referendum, to “demonstrate to Australians how it can work”.
The Liberal Party has yet to offer support to the Yes or No case for a constitutionally enshrined Voice, the Nationals came out in opposition late last year, and the Greens’ full support hangs in the balance.
According to a Resolve Political Monitor poll commissioned by the Nine papers and released on Tuesday, support for the Voice has fallen from 53% to 47%, and just 13% said they’d feel confident enough to explain it to a friend.
The framework’s biggest supporters are Greens voters, of whom 51% said they were a “definite Yes”; 34% of Labor voters also were also committed to the Yes camp, but just 10% of Coalition voters said they’d follow suit.
It’s pretty obvious that Senator Thorpe wants to be the one negotiating a Treaty, not a properly consultative and representative body like the Voice. Going that route would make a Treaty unviable, because it would be about securing her own personal position rather than the community at large.
A “treaty before Voice” stance is supporting the No vote as this dissension fractures and weakens the case for a Voice. Treaty will not happen without the Voice because there needs to be a powerful lobby and party political Indigenous reps cannot advocate independently of the mining lobby that funds their parties. This does not apply to yhe Greens but they alienate a lot of Indigenous people.
The Greens alienate a lot of people period.
Thorpe’s idea for the federal Senate to include
requires segregation of Australian voters, and the proposed Senators, by ethnic identity, which some would just call discrimination by race. It’s one thing to have an advisory body such as the proposed Voice for a particular group. Plenty of such bodies exist, although putting the requirement in the constitution is at least unusual. Thorpe’s idea is much more fundamental and extreme. In effect, the nine First Nation Senators would be representing a shadow First Nations proto-state within the federation. Would First Nations voters still vote for the rest of the Senate, so getting double representation there, or would they only vote for their own, while the rest of Australia elects the rest of the Senate? Is this really a good idea?
I suppose all we can do is ask for more detail.
Thorpe is grandstanding only for the notoriety it brings her. Who would have heard of her except for her antics.
When she torpedoes The Voice will she see that as a great victory for Aboriginal people? Will anybody else? Does she seriously think it will lead onto something more comprehensive?
Even Dutton might have a hard time convincing people it was a great victory when the fuss dies down. He is only in it for a chance of a victory over the Government rather than any matter of principle.
Apart from the points already made, does Lidia Thorpe and the Greens really think that the major parties will vote/legislate to have an additional nine seats in the Senate that are independent of the major parties? She is living in la la land.
The major parties, ie the ones that actually get enough votes to form government, have no interest at all in creating another set of independents to have to deal with. This is just such a ridiculous and non- achievable objective.
In addition, does Thorpe and the Greens think that Treaty and Truth have any chance of being achieved if the Voice referendum looses?
How can you refer to “Labor’s shambolic campaign” on the Voice? There is no campaign, it hasn’t started yet. Just Dutton being predictably oppositional. The campaign will begin in a few weeks.