Indigenous activist says not part of ‘Team Australia’ and will oppose Aboriginal reconciliation

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Indigenous activist says not part of ‘Team Australia’ and will oppose Aboriginal reconciliation

An indigenous activist and Australia’s newest senator says she will never feel part of ‘Team Australia’ unless the government agrees to a treaty with First Nations people. 

Lidia Thorpe was elected by the Greens to sit in former leader Richard Di Natale’s soon to be vacant seat after he announced he would step down earlier this year. 

Ms Thorpe says she ‘struggles’ to say she is proudly Australian considering the Aboriginal experience of more than 200 year history of oppression.

Speaking to the The Sydney Morning Herald, the Gunnai Gunditjmara woman, said that she said she would oppose steps toward reconciliation without a treaty. 

‘We need a treaty. Aboriginal people in this country want peace. Let’s deal with the crux of the problem that we have in this country. That is that we have never had an agreement with the First People to be here,’ Ms Thorpe said. 

Indigenous activist and Australia’s newest senator Lidia Thorpe (pictured) says she will never feel part of ‘Team Australia’ unless the government agrees to a treaty with First Nations people 

Ms Thorpe hails from a prominent family of activists – her grandmother Alma Thorpe was a trailblazer for indigenous social reform, founding the Aboriginal Health Service 

A treaty would include recognition of First Nations sovereignty, the return of vacant crown land to traditional owners and the establishment of standalone senate seats for First Nations representatives. 

Ms Thorpe, a dropout and grandmother, is one of the most radical figures to enter Australian parliament, holding strong views on indigenous recognition and saying she ‘doesn’t identify’ with the Australian dream. 

The 46-year-old hails from a prominent family of activists – her grandmother Alma Thorpe was a trailblazer for indigenous social reform, founding the Aboriginal Health Service. 

Her mother Marjorie Thorpe is also a well known advocate for First Nations people and her uncle, Robbie Thorpe, was a key figure in Melbourne’s black civil rights movement of the 1970s. 

She grew up surrounded by poverty in a Collingwood housing commission flat and had political issues ingrained in her from a young age. 

She says she remembers sitting on Muhammad Ali’s knee when the famous boxer and civil rights activist visited Fitzroy in 1979. 

And visiting Kirribilli House when her mother was a member of John Howard’s Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. 

Ms Thorpe, who was previously an MP for the Greens in Victoria, says the reconciliation debate for decades has revolved around issues such as an apology, constitutional recognition, and changing when Australia Day is recognised. 

She claims these arguments are skirting around the central issue of a treaty between colonial settlers and First Nations people. 

‘Let’s stop trying to divert to all these other things like changing the date and constitutional recognition and all these fluffy things that do nothing. Let’s deal with the hard issue.’ 

Ms Thorpe’s uncle, Robbie Thorpe, was a key figure in Melbourne’s black civil rights movement of the 1970s 

Ms Thorpe hopes to make positive changes from within Canberra’s political landscape, saying discrimination is still prevalent in modern Australia 

She says she had some deep reservations about heading to Canberra to join an institution which her family had rallied against her whole life but was encouraged by the backing of her people. 

She hopes to make positive changes from within Canberra’s political landscape, saying discrimination is still prevalent in modern Australia.

Thorpe briefly quit campaigning in May to visit her mother in Victoria’s Gippsland after learning four young Aboriginal people, including a 15-year-old boy had taken their lives. 

This kind of desperation, she says, is not uncommon among indigenous youth who  feel disconnected with society.    

‘The opportunities just aren’t there for people. The racism is rife but not blatant. It is undercover racism, an unconscious bias that people have,’ Ms Thorpe says. 

Thorpe supports the views of Aboriginal writer Michael Mansell who argues a treaty can be achieved without resorting to a referendum.  

Lidia Thorpe was elected by the Greens to sit in former leader Richard Di Natale’s soon to be vacant seat after he announced he would step down earlier this year 

THE TREATY WITH INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS 

A treaty between Indigenous Australians and European settlers was put forward by Michael Mansell in his 2016 book ‘Treaty and Statehood: Aboriginal Self-determination’. 

The Aboriginal writer says a central notion of such a treaty would be the designation of 12 seats in the Senate to Indigenous Australians. 

A treaty would also return vacant Commonwealth land to traditional owners. 

Mansell argues these measures would be possible under the Constitution without the need for a referendum. 

He also puts forward a proposal for a seventh State, which he calls ‘The First State for the First peoples’, which would include independent political rights for Aboriginal communities. 

Mansell is a Tasmanian aboriginal leader of Palawa descent from the Trawlwoolway group on his mother’s side and from the Pinterrairer group on his father’s side.  

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Source: Daily Mail australia

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