Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today as a senator for the grassroots black sovereign movement, a movement that has existed in this country for tens of thousands of generations. It's a movement that I was raised in, and a movement that my children and grandchildren are being raised in.

Sovereignty has never been ceded in this country. The generations of staunch black activists who came before me fought not for themselves but for the continuation and survival of the oldest culture on this planet, and for the generations to inherit their cultural birthright that is sovereignty unceded. Sovereignty may seem like a new and uncomfortable concept within the walls of this building because this place was built with a vision that my sovereign body would never walk a foot in here and that my ancestors' stories of fight, of pain and of survival would not survive the war this building declared on them, on us and on me. Well, I stand here to declare that we are still here. We are here, and I'm proud to be guided by black excellence! (Time expired)