Lidia Thorpe tells Karl Stefanovic he’s “not bad for a white guy”
The independent Senator tells Stefanovic she doesn’t intend to stand for election again, telling him her combativeness is ‘misunderstood’ and she ‘doesn’t hate white people.’
Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe told Karl Stefanovic he was “not bad for a white guy” during a wide-ranging interview where she addressed her past scandals head-on.
The fiery and outspoken politican appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday where she explained her combativeness is “misunderstood”.
Lidia Thorpe on voting against The Voice to Parliament.
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) July 9, 2023
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The Greens defector turned independent senator said while she may be considered a “bona fide troublemaker”, she did it for “all the right reasons”.
While riding e-scooters around the nation’s capital, Thorpe surprised viewers when she admitted Stefanovic was “not bad for a white guy”.
Lidia Thorpe on not pledging allegiance to the queen.
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) July 9, 2023
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She told him she was a “no bulls**t” type of politician, committed to cutting through the drivel and “calling it for what it is”, she walked around with a bullseye on her.
“I’m not this angry, crazy black woman out there that hates white people. It’s just not who I am,” she said.
“I’ve been called so many things sine I was a child that after a while it’s water off a ducks back.”
During the interview, Senator Thorpe opened up about her upbringing, including how she left school at 14, became pregnant at 17, and became the target of violence.
“I suppose I was used to violence from my first relationships, and it’s happened so many times that I just kept getting back up,” she said.
Lidia Thorpe on being removed from at protests
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) July 9, 2023
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She also said of her decision to declare bankruptcy in 2013, as a single mother of three after leaving a toxic marriage, the “best decision” she ever made.
Four years later she made history as the first Aboriginal woman in the Victorian parliament, and when she lost her seat at the 2018 election looked to Canberra and was sworn in 2020 as a Greens senator for the state.
She told Stefanovic she doesn’t intend to run again when she’s next up for election in 2028, because the parliament need “new people, younger people coming in with fresh ideas”.
Her time in Canberra has been mired in controversy and scandal, notably a brawl outside a Melbourne strip club, her links to former Revels bikie boss, and her activity at various protests.
Lidia Thorpe on getting banned for life from a strip club.
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) July 9, 2023
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On the strip club controversy, Senator Thorpe told Stefanovic she had been verbally abused, and the only thing she did wrong was “reacting to someone else’s bad behaviour, when I probably shouldn’t have”.
She left the Greens earlier this year, telling Stefanovic it had happened for “a number of reasons”.
“As an independent, I can speak on anything that I like and unfortunately as a political party, the Greens are no different to Labor and the Coalition parties where racism does exist … (including) inside the Greens … from places that should know better,” she said.
Now a leader of the progressive no campaign against the upcoming Voice to parliament, Senator Thorpe told Stefanovic she does not see the proposal getting up later this year.
“I’m part of the progressive no, and … we want more,” she said.
She said the progressive no was built on something significantly different to what she called the “racist no”.
“We are not one homogenous group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We’re allowed to think differently and we are allowed to say no on the grounds that it is not enough,” she said.
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