Lidia Thorpe leaves door open to legislation on treaty ahead of Voice referendum

Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has refused to rule out exploring legislative options ahead of a referendum if it could expedite the government’s commitment to truth-telling and treaty, as support for the government’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament loses steam. 

“The Greens want truth and treaty to be taken as seriously as the Voice and called for $161 million to be put towards this in the last budget,” Thorpe told Crikey. 

“Other matters that we’ve put on the table in our negotiations with Labor include enacting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, keeping kids out of prison, and making Medicare available in prisons. This would save peoples lives, before any referendum.”

Thorpe, who also speaks for the Greens on First Nations issues, has said she does not support the No campaign, but that a referendum on constitutional recognition would be a “waste of money” better spent in Indigenous communities.

Thorpe said the Greens plan to announce their position in the coming weeks in a bid to ensure the government “does not undermine First Peoples sovereignty” through constitutional reform.

Thorpe joins organisers of Invasion Day rallies in each of Australia’s capital cities tomorrow in calling for “treaty before Voice”. Thousands are expected to gather for an annual reminder of the ongoing impacts of British colonisation.

Thorpe’s public position, which is informed by her party’s First Nations network known as the “Blak Greens”, is that she would like to see the core tenets of the Uluru Statement From the Heart play out with truth-telling and treaty coming first, followed by a Voice. The same order has been adopted by the Greens as party policy. 

Those in favour of reordering the Uluru Statement, or the formation of a Makarrata commission, often argue that doing so is crucial to their connection to land, retaining sovereignty, and securing critical legislative power. The Greens want to introduce a $250 million truth and justice commission as a step before treaty, with the aim of “exploring, understanding and reckoning” with Australia’s colonial past.

The party’s push for treaty, a legal agreement between First Nations peoples and governments, would begin with consultation, and then inform how First Nations peoples are represented to and in Parliament.

“We don’t need a referendum to have nine additional Senate seats in this place. It can happen through a piece of legislation, because the constitution in this country allows for extra Senate seats without going to a referendum,” Thorpe said. 

“We can actually achieve independent First Nations seats — nine of them, with real power — as well as legislating a treaty, without going through the cost and the process of a referendum, which we know in the history of this country referendums don’t get up too often.” 

Signs of recent public fractures over a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament emerged in 2017, when Thorpe as one of at least seven delegates from Victoria and Dubbo walked out of the Referendum Council’s talks on constitutional recognition. 

The group said signing up to a Voice to Parliament risked the preservation of First Nations sovereignty. “We won’t sell out our mob,” they told reporters.

When asked what she would say to voters who want to be sure they’re voting in the best interests of a consensus formed by Indigenous leaders from across the country, and think that the Uluru Statement is the most solid consensus they’ve seen yet, Thorpe said: “First Nations people have been fighting for treaty for decades.

“It’s what our elders have marched for, it’s been on banners at protests. It’s what we were promised by Bob Hawke’s Labor government in the ’80s and it’s still unfinished business today.

“Delegates at the Yulara Convention were selected, not democratically elected by the people.” 

Growing calls for truth and treaty to come before a constitutionally enshrined Voice have added to the headwinds faced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he looks to send voters to the polls for a referendum later this year. 

The calls intensified after Albanese said the framework would be “subservient” to Parliament.

Since the beginning of the calendar year, he has faced almost daily challenges from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to provide detail. Last week he called on Labor to first legislate the framework before taking it to a referendum, to “demonstrate to Australians how it can work”.

The Liberal Party has yet to offer support to the Yes or No case for a constitutionally enshrined Voice, the Nationals came out in opposition late last year, and the Greens’ full support hangs in the balance.

According to a Resolve Political Monitor poll commissioned by the Nine papers and released on Tuesday, support for the Voice has fallen from 53% to 47%, and just 13% said they’d feel confident enough to explain it to a friend. 

The framework’s biggest supporters are Greens voters, of whom 51% said they were a “definite Yes”; 34% of Labor voters also were also committed to the Yes camp, but just 10% of Coalition voters said they’d follow suit.