Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, am rising to speak to the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023, a bill supposedly centred on recognising the First Peoples of this country, the oldest continuing culture in the world. This week the Labor government opposed my motion to take action towards treaty. They have refused to define sovereignty, they have refused to acknowledge First Nations sovereignty and they have continued to ignore my repeated requests to meet with the blak sovereign movement in this country. I had publicly stated that I would abstain from voting on this legislation and that I was open to discussing the bill with the government. They have not listened to blak voices—even the blak voices in the parliament who actually have some power.

My position on the Constitution amendment bill is now as clear as the air before colonisation. This bill is for a referendum that Labor and the Greens are using to absolve colonial Australia of its responsibility. They have presented it as a great solution to the stain on the nation that is the poverty and incarceration of First Nations people. The Voice, they have promised, will give First Nations a say, and, with that, all will be well with the Aborigines; the Aboriginal problem will be fixed. But the truth is: it is just constitutional recognition, with a powerless advisory body as window dressing.

The government is claiming the referendum will bring all of us together, but that is not what is happening on the ground right now. This referendum has already given space to and elevated some of the most vile racism this country has ever seen—and that's saying something. Many have expressed concern and support for First Nations people on the receiving end of this heightened racism. We don't want your sympathy; we want the racism to end. Standing up to racism means respecting First Nations people, and in order to respect us you must recognise our sovereignty.

This bill fails to recognise the sovereignty of our people. It is an intended failure because, if the government actually recognised that we are sovereign, it would also admit that it is not, that our lands were invaded, that our people were unlawfully conquered, massacred and oppressed and that this government and all governments preceding it were illegal according to their own laws.

The government claims that this bill and the referendum resulting from it will not impact our sovereignty. It is easy for them to say our sovereignty won't be impacted because they only see it as a spiritual notion. It is far from just a spiritual notion. I have put forward amendment to this bill which would, once and for all, recognise our sovereignty—our actual sovereignty—which is an unceded right held in collective possession by the members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations which confers usage, access and custodianship of the lands, waters, minerals and natural resources of what is now known as Australia, and the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to exercise an unimpeded and collective self-determinant governance over there political, economic and social affairs. That is what we are talking about when we talk of sovereignty. That is what sovereignty is. It provides a foundation to negotiate a treaty.

The bill before us is trying to establish a Voice to parliament under the pretence that it is self-determination. Today I am bringing you a sovereign perspective on the Voice truly borne out of self-determination. I am not just standing here as Lidia Thorpe but as a representative of the Blak sovereign movement. I am guided by actual Blak sovereigns, voices such as those of Aunty Jenny Munro, founder of the Redfern embassy; Uncle Michael Mansell, author and lawyer; Uncle Michael Anderson, founder of the Aboriginal tent embassy; Aunty Dr Mary Graham, professor of history and politics; Uncle Adrian Burragubba, musician and former political candidate; Ned Hargraves, Warlpiri elder; Les Malezer, Australian human rights medal recipient and UN committee member; Robbie Thorpe, my uncle and editor, presenter and activist; Gary Foley, professor of history and founder of tent embassy; Professor Chelsea Watego, professor of Indigenous health; Lynda-June Coe, PhD candidate and New South Wales upper house candidate; Aunty Gwenda Stanley, educator, dancer and cultural ambassador—and so many more elders I could spend the whole time on this speech telling you about. Your accolades are in our history and our culture.

These are the people that you don't listen to or won't listen to. Here is a small sample of what these voices have had to say on the referendum. Michael Mansell says, "By merrily advising parliament that the Voice endorses the right of others to decide, the advisory voice is at complete odds with sovereignty." Gwenda Stanley says: "Our sovereignty has never been ceded. We have never given consent to this process. This movement has repeatedly asked to meet with the Minister for Indigenous Australians and the Attorney-General to discuss genuine concerns with the proposed referendum, yet our calls remain unanswered."

This government doesn't want to hear First Nations people's voices who don't support their agenda. That is why I am here today—to make sure that a sovereign perspective on this proposed Voice to parliament is known. The government promotes the Voice as a mechanism for self-determination that will finally give First Nations people a say in this country. What is self-determining about a referendum where a majority of 97 per cent of the population who are non-First Nations get to decide about what is best for us three per cent? It is the opposite of self-determination.

You quote polls stating that most First Nations people support the Voice. Most polls are asking if First Nations people should have a say in policies. They do not ask about constitutional recognition. When you are starving, taking a crumb does not mean you support the system that starves you. The Uluru Statement from the Heart was by no means a consensus statement. In fact, for speaking up about our concerns and raising treaty and sovereignty, some of us received tribal death threats and had to sleep out in the desert that night for fear of our lives, and I was one of those. A disabled elder was arrested and taken away in a divvy wagon from one dialogue in Blacktown in Sydney. Look that up. That is not a unifying moment. That is not a moment of peace, and it does not pave the way for it.

Megan Davis boasted about the dialogues at the National Press Club, saying 'we also banned significant leaders from the movement because of their cynicism about the government'. Despite this, recent documents released through a freedom of information request clearly show that what our people were primarily calling for during the regional dialogues was treaty. There were many at the regional dialogues who insisted that any body must be stronger than just an advisory body to parliament. Many ideas were floated about how we could actually get a real say and some power, such as designated seats in parliament. Yet nobody talks about that. Instead, what the Labor government is putting forward is the weakest of all versions—an advisory body without any real influence. The parliament will retain supremacy over the Voice and can decide who it is and what it does. Tell me, where is the self-determination in that?

My people are sick of spending their lives advising those in decision-making positions, just to have their advice ignored. Just look at the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing them home report. They were self-determined pieces of advice provided to—an even commissioned by—government. Yet, decades later, their recommendations are still not implemented. Traditional owners in the Beetaloo advised that they do not want their country fracked. The government ignored their voice and fracking is about to begin. If the government, or any of the previous governments, were serious about listening to us they had every opportunity along the way, and they have failed.

I was, and am, prepared to constructively engage with the government around the Voice and around urgent action we need to see in the meantime, which would actually make a difference to our people's lives. The government could save lives by implementing the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The federal government has jurisdiction over a number of these recommendations. Health care in prisons equal to that in the community was a key recommendation from the royal commission. Many, many deaths in custody occur due to untreated and preventable conditions. This could easily be addressed by the government through bringing Medicare, PBS and NDIS into prisons.

Another action the government can take today is to provide increased funding to Aboriginal legal services across the country, as they are struggling to meet increased demands. We all know that if our people cannot get adequate—or any—legal support, they will be more likely be locked up and locked up for longer. Higher incarceration ultimately leads to more deaths in custody. Our kids don't belong in prisons. The government has an opportunity to raise the age of legal responsibility to 14. And there has been no progress on implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The referendum process has not come close to the requirements of free, prior and informed consent. So far, the government has shown no good faith to progress any of these actions or show that they actually want things to improve for our people.

Therefore, in the name of the black sovereign movement, I will be voting no the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. The government has failed to show good faith. I cannot support a referendum that does not acknowledge our sovereignty. A step away from recognising sovereignty is not a step in the right direction. I cannot support a referendum that is merely intended to make colonisers in this country feel better about themselves while not giving us any real say. I cannot support a referendum that is gammon and not actually improving our lives. I cannot support a referendum that is already dividing and hurting our communities. Instead, I will continue to fight for real change and to turn things around in this country. I will continue to work to achieve treaty.

The government repeatedly said they are committed to all elements of the Uluru statement, and that included treaty. I'll leave it up to the audience as to how genuine this government is about treaty if it can vote it down in a second. Treaty is commonly understood to be an agreement between two or more sovereigns and therefore requires recognition of sovereignty. Agreeing to a treaty process is a step in the right direction towards recognising First Nations sovereignty in this country. Recognition of our sovereignty is a foundation of respecting First Nations people. Each time our sovereignty is denied, this government chooses to continue the colonial legacy of violence and oppression.

I long for the day when we can celebrate an end to the war here—the war between the colonial government and First Nations people. It is a very one-sided war, but it is most definitely a war. We demand to meet as equals, sovereign to sovereign, to negotiate treaty. Treaties, when negotiated and not imposed, have proven to be effective at ending hostilities and providing long-lasting peace. We need that peace and justice, and that is what I will continue fighting for up to and beyond this referendum. Treaty is an opportunity for us to unite, heal the nation and move forward together.