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

Well, it is another day in the colony. This is Australia, everybody. This is a government—the so-called progressive Labor government—that waves the Aboriginal flag, wears the Aboriginal earrings and says it's our friend. Yet it denies the rights of Indigenous people in this country. To vote down the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is an absolute disgrace. You should all hold your heads in shame, Labor. I'm surprised your Indigenous representatives aren't in the chamber to participate in this discussion. It shows that there's a real shame factor going on in your party. Despite Senator Dodson's legacy—all the contributions he's made whilst he's been here—you did not even have the decency or the respect to give Senator Dodson a legacy that we can never forget, and that is a legacy of giving us rights in this country.

We haven't had rights since the boats arrived 250 years ago. The colonial project is only about taking away those rights so that you can rape and pillage our country, our water, our women, our babies, our men. There have been 550 deaths in custody. There are over 20,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children not living with their families because your government continues the ongoing genocide against First Peoples in this country. You railroaded this inquiry, and you railroaded this bill, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Bill 2022. You hijacked it for your failed Voice, which, may I remind you, had no free, prior and informed consent, and it wasn't self-determined by the people. It was 'self-determined' by John Howard and the Liberal Party way back when.

So don't pretend that you're doing us a favour, Labor. You are complicit in the ongoing genocide by not implementing the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, by not implementing the recommendations of the Bringing them home report. Numbers are still skyrocketing in every community in this country. And, yes, there are blackfellas everywhere in this country. Even down south you might find us. You didn't wipe us out completely. We survived the massacres, the murders, the rapes, and I'm living proof of that, and I'm so glad I've got five years left in this place because I'm going to make your job hell for the next five years. I will not stop until we get justice in this country for First People.

I'm not here to make friends. Let's face it, it's a colonial project. You all bow to the Queen and bow to the King and bow to everybody in here and follow the processes of the colonial institution. Yes, I'm a part of this, but I'm only here to rattle and shake every one of you into understanding that you are complicit in genocide and that the genocide continues in the most sophisticated way in 2023.

The minister's speech was a beautiful example of that—the ongoing genocide, the ongoing denial, the ongoing 'let's pat the little blackfellas on the head and give them some money for their health service to shut that mob up'. Well, I don't subscribe to that. The black sovereign movement doesn't subscribe to that. Elders across this country don't subscribe to that. Yet you wield around your little power wand and your money train to our people. You suck them in and then, at the end of the day, you come to the chamber and deny our rights.

Where are the blackfellas in this place? Where are all the black people supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People? Is it not safe for our people to be in this chamber today because the Labor government have decided to not support our rights in this country? Minister, you talked about Kevin Rudd—deadly Rudd; deadly apology. Why has child removal increased since the apology? Why is it out of control right now? Why are we still dying younger? Why are black women like me still dying younger in this country, our own country? You're not closing the gap.

Labor, all you are good for is smoothing the dying pillow. That's all you're good for. Just keep the blacks happy while we slowly continue the legacy of the colonial project. Wipe them out. Keep them sick. Don't give them any rights to be able to determine their own destiny. If we keep smoothing that dying pillow, one day we won't have to worry about them anymore.

Minister, you say you uphold the principles. Where's free, prior and informed consent, as Senator Shoebridge points out, in regard to the Beetaloo basin? Why do you listen to some traditional owners and not others? Why are you hand-picking the blackfellas to talk to and the blackfellas not to talk to? Who are your advisers, because you're getting bad advice? You're hurting our people. You're denying our rights.

It's been 15 years since your deadly Prime Minister Rudd said sorry. We've got 20,000 kids in out-of-home care. In 15 years what have you done with UNDRIP? Come to the chamber today: 'Merry Christmas, blackfellas out there!' You think that we're going to let you get away with this?

When you have your own ministers giving money to the police and the prisons, and not the people to self-determine what the solutions are in their own communities, you're giving money to the police to be tougher on crime, particularly on young people in the Northern Territory. You're a joke! You talk about legal services, Minister. They're struggling. They're underfunded. Yes, you might have given them some small change. You get more money from your donors than you give to the legal services. Good luck sleeping with that at night. Obviously your pay packet and your power are more important than the rights of our people.

I'm going to read a quote from Professor Chelsea Watego, Mununjali Yugambeh woman and Executive Director of the Curumba Institute at Queensland University of Technology:

When we speak of Indigenous rights, we are speaking about Indigenous lives—

are you away wake over there or what?—

It is a call for a rethink of Indigenous affairs, away from the needs-based approach which operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeping us trapped on the mouse wheel of misery - it is what keeps our kids in out of home care, kicks our kids out of schools, places our people in prisons, and leaves us grieving at gravesites for lives lost well before their time.

Enshrining UNDRIP into Australian law would’ve been a way of getting us off this miserable road to nowhere and realise real progress for our people.

The continued denial of our rights by those who have the most to gain reflects a steadfast commitment to the continuing violence of settler colonialism and absolute indifference to Indigenous lives and lands.

And another quote from a countryman of mine, Gunaikurnai and Wotjobaluk man, journalist and writer Benjamin Abbatangelo:

If the Albanese government had a modicum of decency, then it would have enthusiastically supported Senator Thorpe's bill - which is not only a bare minimum and uncontroversial piece of legislation that other comparable nations have already enshrined; but a logical next step in the wake of a failed referendum.

Over the last eighteen months, Labor ministers have written countless columns and used innumerable domestic and international press conferences, question times, senate estimates, television and radio interviews—

remember all that? Remember 12 months of the pain in your ears of the Labor government saying how great they are with the relationship with blackfellas in this country?—

sports and cultural events to prosecute the urgent need to address Indigenous marginalisation. Senator Thorpe's bill provides the government with an actionable and familiar framework that would not only radically improve our lives, but address the very marginalisation that they said can no longer be ignored.

After spending almost two decades delaying the implementation of UNDRIP, which has culminated in the rejection of this bill, the government should be removed as a signatory.

There you have it. There's a couple of voices for you.

I know our people have a little love for Labor because of Gough Whitlam—not because of Kevin Rudd or Albanese or any of the others, but because of a great man way back when I was a kid. He'd be rolling in his grave if he saw what was going on today with the denial of our rights. It's a sad day when you get a so-called progressive government denying the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country. It is another day in the colony. What you're seeing in Palestine right now is what happened to us 250 years ago. The genocide still happens here. I don't know how many ministers I've had to negotiate with in the last fortnight to get self-determination into the legislation and to get free, prior and informed consent into the legislation. I'm sick of begging your ministers for our rights. When are you going to stand up and truly be our friends and ensure that we have rights in this country? (Time expired)