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

I move amendment (1) on sheet 1923:

(1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (after line 24), at the end of Chapter IX, add:

130 Sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Nothing in this Act shall be taken to cede or disturb the Sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples means an unceded right held in collective possession by the members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations which confers usage, access and custodianship to 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-determinate governance over their political, economic and social affairs.

We were invaded, we were massacred, and we still survive after over 200 years of oppressive regimes and of absolute torment to our families, our communities, our country, our water and our air. We are sovereign to all of that. Every living thing on these lands is our sovereignty. We have never ceded our sovereignty in this country.

The King is not the sovereign of this country. First Peoples are the sovereigns of this country. The King does not have a right over our lands, our waters and our bodies in 2023. The King doesn't even live here. How can he be sovereign? How can he call himself sovereign? The King sits in his palace from stolen wealth taken from this country.

You want to talk about people who've passed? What about the massacres that occurred when the boats arrived with the convicts and the colonisers? Let's talk about those bodies. We are still impacted today because of the mass murders that the colonisers came here to do. The murdering Cook, James Cook the murderer, told a lie to the King and said that no-one was here. He referred to us as 'wild beasts', he did. He lied to the King. He said no-one was here. How is that sovereignty? How is that legal?

How is this whole parliament legal? It is not. The parliament of what you now call Australia is an illegal occupation on stolen land. And who benefits? All you. All you. Sorry, sister; not you, and not Senator McCarthy. But everyone else benefits. Everyone benefits from my people's misery—absolute misery.

And what about the decisions that have been made since 1901 in this place? What have they ever done for First Peoples on these lands? Not one piece of legislation that has ever come out of this place has been good for us. You know why? Because it's deliberate. It's deliberate. This place is here because they need to get rid of the black problem that they have, that the King has, that the colonisers have. That's why this place is here: to continue making laws that take our rights away, that kill our people in the systems that you set up.

It's working well. It's the art of war, right? It's working really well. We have 23,000 Aboriginal children in out-of-home care, and you've been talking about closing the gap for how long? And it's just rising. You've got a government here that don't give a fruit about stolen generations or children being taken. Youse don't care, because if you did you'd implement the recommendations from the Bringing them home report. Youse are shameful and youse are gammon. Deaths in custody—over 500. Who cares? The government don't. Since 1901 the government haven't cared. Why should the Labor government of today care? They're bound by the King's direction to kill us off. Gina Rinehart's father said it: 'Get rid of the black problem; poison the waterways.'

You're not any different, to be honest. You haven't acknowledged our sovereignty. You keep coming up with gammon reasons about your deadly referendum working group, who were all handpicked by you. They are all your mates. You even have a senator's husband on there. They're all your mates. They're not grassroots people who have called for a seat at the table. You deliberately ignored those people. Six years those people have been knocking on the door. For six years you've just ignored them. It's just disgusting.

I went to the Melbourne referendum meeting and I went to the Sydney one. The Sydney one had a disabled elder taken away in a divvy wagon because he lit a fire outside in protest. The fire brigade came and put his fire out. They put handcuffs on him in front of his grandkids and threw him in the back of a divvy wagon because he didn't agree. AIATSIS staff at the time threatened black women with police because we stood in silence to say, 'We don't support constitutional recognition.' There was a convoy of grassroots blackfellas that drove all the way to Yulara for the meeting to try and protest. No-one had money to get there. We were scrounging around for grassroots mob to get to that meeting and it was hard. But they arrived. There were only a few cars. Then do you know what happened? Because I and a few others called for treaty and sovereignty to be acknowledged, we had death threats. I slept in the desert with a death threat over my head, a tribal punishment death threat, and then I had to go the next day to meet with all the senior lawmen. They were disgusted at the threat that I received, and they told me I was welcome back on their country any time because it was interpreted to them that I was standing up for their sovereign rights.

That is what this whole gammon 'yes' campaign has been about. You're not saving our souls; you're just putting everything off to a gammon voice that you are going to have total control over. So stop being gammon. Self-determination is not when you have power over Aboriginal people. We will ramp up now. The black sovereign movement will be here next week. You better be prepared because we ain't going down without a fight.