Senator Lidia Thorpe has quit the Greens and will move to the crossbench as an independent to pursue a campaign for truth and treaty before a Voice to Parliament, as leader of what she called the “Blak sovereign movement”.
“It has become clear to me that I can’t do that from within the Greens. Now, I will be able to speak freely, on all issues, from a sovereign perspective, without being constrained by portfolios and agreed party positions,” Thorpe told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
“Greens MPs, members and supporters have told me they want to support the Voice. This is at odds with the community of activists who are saying treaty before Voice.”
The announcement came after a partyroom meeting on Monday, and will likely resolve long-running party fractures over the federal Greens position on the Voice to Parliament, after the party failed to reach a consensus at a retreat in Victoria last week
Greens Leader Adam Bandt denied he had “pushed out” Thorpe over the disagreement.
“I’ve just made it clear that I tried very hard to get Senator Thorpe to stay,” he told reporters on Monday.
“I wanted her to stay, felt that there was a place for her in the party. She’s obviously come to a different view. I’m sad about that, but that’s what she’s decided.”
Thorpe’s departure will also reconcile the Greens party position on the Voice with its voter intentions, should the party announce its support for constitutional recognition in the coming days.
According to a Resolve Political Monitor poll commissioned by the Nine papers and released late January, the Voice’s biggest supporters are Greens voters, of whom 51% said they were a “definite Yes”.
Among Labor voters, 34% said they were committed to the Yes camp, while just 10% of Coalition voters said they’d follow suit.
Thorpe said her formal position on the Voice continues to hang in the balance, but that she will continue to negotiate with Labor on implementing the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report.
The senator said she would continue to vote with the Greens on climate change.
At his press conference, Bandt thanked Thorpe for commitments to continue voting with the Greens on climate change, but couldn’t be drawn on whether she would vote with them on other issues.
Bandt said he offered to take the Voice portfolio off her hands in the event she wanted to vote at odds with the party, if it meant she would stay.
“She’s obviously decided to adopt a different course. I wish she had made a different decision, but I understand the reasons that she has given for that decision,” Bandt said.
Thorpe has been a vocal critic of Labor’s plan to take a Voice to Parliament to a referendum this year, instead calling for truth and treaty to come first, for fears a Voice could undermine First Nations sovereignty.
Some constitutional experts, along with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have rejected the suggestion that a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament would undermine First Nations sovereignty.
Thorpe’s move to the crossbench could complicate legislative passage on a number of issues for the Albanese government, which will now need the support of the Greens in the Senate as well as two independents to push through its agenda.
Late last month, Thorpe refused to rule out her legislative options ahead of a referendum if it could expedite the government’s commitment to truth-telling and treaty, as she prepared to stand alongside Invasion Day rally organisers in opposing the government’s plans for a Voice.
She has since insisted to her former party colleagues that she alone meet with Indigenous communities to discuss the Voice, after she was given free rein by the partyroom last week to campaign against constitutional recognition should the party join the Yes camp this week.
The Greens will meet again on Monday evening before announcing a formal position on the Voice to Parliament this week.
Correction: A previous version of this story said Bandt had offered to take the First Nations portfolio if Thorpe would stay in the party. In fact he offered to take the Voice portfolio.
I actually think this is a good outcome. The Greens are social democrats who offer progressives an alternative to the major parties while ultimately abiding by parliamentary norms. Lydia Thorpe is an activist politician who prioritises speaking her truth (or a version of it anyway). I think parliament is a better place with both parties doing their own thing.
Yes. True. Except she has betrayed the paying membership who campaigned for her and thought they were voting for a ‘team’ player.
And not just the paying membership.
Democracy innit? See: Craig Kelly, Jacqui Lambie…Craig Thomson
I agree. Things evolve and a democracy will never be perfect. It is better to have people act with integrity and go it alone rather than stay in a party they no longer support, white anting or downing tools.
She may have (perhaps reasonably) concluded that the Greens are not the best vessel for her particular brand of Indigenous activism. My only issue: voters won’t get a say on her again until 2028!
I understand that, but surely Greens voters are overall better served this way.
I’m not Victorian so I can’t say this for sure, but she doesn’t seem to have taken on an activist approach since joining the federal parliament so surely people who voted for her knew there was potential for something like this to happen?
If she wanted to “act with integrity and go it alone” she should have campaigned as an independent and made her views clear at the last election, instead of running as a Green and using the machinery and resources of the party to get her elected, just to abandon the party once she got her seat. She gained her seat under false pretences no integrity in that.
See also Cori Bernardi.
A FrankNfurter step to the right to fantasy free him that was entirely dreamy. Madness took its toll and his party-of-one had a short season. SkyAD re-run (well secluded) is not a sensation, definitely a time warp, but shrinking fandom means his political-stage recall is unlikely.
Chances of Thorpe remaining a Senator beyond current term? Unlike Lambi who is all over the political field (gathering followers from a wide range) Thorpe is more Bernardi-like; forever on the edge.
The Craig Who’s are both in another dimension.
Another politician has used a vote for a party to get into Parliament and then gone her own way. But this is still good for the Greens as their support for the Yes vote will no longer be undermined.
Thorpe says she is now free to speak. But a lot of people including me will not be listening.
Thorpe says her decision means she can now “speak freely”. Can anyone point to an occasion when she has not spoken freely in the past? On the contrary, perhaps now she is no longer the Greens’ problem, Bandt and the rest of the party can speak freely.
More fool you, and they.
We don’t vote for parties. We vote for individuals, both in the Reps and in the Senate. The supposed above the line “party” vote in ther senate is in fact a vote for a list of individuals, in order the party places them. A “Greens” vote above the line is not a vote for the Greens. It was a vote for Thorpe. She didn’t quite get to a quota until very late in the count, by which time all the other Greens candidates had been excluded, so those extra votes above the quota actually then went to non-Greens candidates.
She didn’t just put herself there. She was pre-selected by the Greens to be on their ballot paper. It’s was the hard work of all the unsung volunteer’s, Greens electioneering, slogans, t-shirts etc that got her elected. Now that she doesn’t want to be a member of the Greens (or can’t because she opposes party policy), the right thing to do would be to resign from parliament and let the Greens replace her with another preselected candidate.
Great. Just what the whole process needs – a bat$*&^ insane person speaking out freely within parliament, purporting to represent the voice of the Aboriginal people.
By her statement, it is clear she claims only to be speaking on behalf of “the community of activists who are saying treaty before Voice.”
Such a view does not warrant the moniker “insane”, let alone your derogatory qualifier. Just because it isn’t your view doesn’t mean a reasonable, thinking person can’t advocate it.
“Treaty before voice” means “drop voice and work on treaty. Then we’Tl sabotage treaty too.”
No reason why voice has to depend on treaty. Work on both of them. Vic govt has been working on treaty for years.
Let’s all be politically realistic as well as respectful to the mainstream Aboriginal consensus at Uluru. Does anyone other than Thorpe believe that if Voice first is a hard battle already, Treaty first would not go down in flames worse than the Republic referendum in the face of a fear campaign about internal nation-states- I am old enough to remember Joh Bjelke Petersen using such line to oppose greater autonomy of people on reserves.
Treaty is underway and ongoing in Vic at this very minute. Right now. No nation-states involved, or incipient. It can be done. Doesn’t depend on Voice, nor vice-versa.
My epithet was informed by her overall behaviour over the past six months, not this one act of leaving the Greens.
Can you be more specific, Tycho? “Overall behaviour” is a weak basis for the description you are trying to justify.
It’s a nudge-nudge/wink-wink slur, as per the old phrase,”no better than she ought to be” – meaningless but loaded with low suggestion.
This feels like a good result for both sides. Thorpe is now free to advocate for her perspective, allowing The Greens to take a pragmatic Yes stance (is it wishful thinking to assume they will do this) rather than inheriting her No stance by association.
Thorpe might be a fierce advocate but she is also a disloyal spoiler and doesn’t have the temperament of a serious legislator. She should resign. The Greens made a serious error in putting her up as a candidate, a fact most people saw coming a long time ago.