The Greens’ cheerleaders on Twitter offered the defence of the indefensible. In the wake of the explosive claims that led to Thorpe’s resignation as deputy leader of the party in the Senate, there were false comparisons, shameless whataboutery, and worse, accusations of racism hurled at the staffers who blew the whistle on the Senator.
Barely a day goes by without Bandt demanding someone or other resign but when it came time for him to act, he squibbed it.
Bandt had demanded and received the resignation of Thorpe not from her portfolio or committee responsibilities but as deputy leader of the party in the Senate, a largely symbolic title.
Thorpe remains the Greens spokesperson on First Nations, the Republic and Sport. She continues to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, a member of the Joint Statutory Committee on Human Rights and a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
Thorpe’s membership of the Joint Statutory Committee on Law Enforcement commenced in February 2021, concluding at the dissolution of parliament prior to this year’s election.
It is this period where she also held the position of Greens’ spokesperson on Justice that has come under scrutiny. Around this time, she had a relationship with Dean Martin, a former president of the Victorian chapter of the Rebels Motorcycle Club. He left the Rebels in 2018. Martin has no criminal antecedents.
As it stands, the conflict of interest is breathtaking. We know that staffers approached Thorpe to warn her of the risk she faced. A work diary note from the staffer and now part of a sworn statement, “(Thorpe) has chosen not to take it… I highlighted the huge, real risk. She assured me the relationship was no longer underway.”
As part of her committee duties, Thorpe received confidential documents from law enforcement agencies in August 2021. There is no evidence that Thorpe shared this information with Martin or any other person. The documents, Bandt said, were “treated in confidence.”
Yet until yesterday, Bandt had no idea who Martin was, let alone that Thorpe had failed to advise the Greens leader that she had been in a relationship with the former Rebels’ boss.
“Obviously I am concerned about the criminal activities of outlaw motorcycle clubs in general. But when we met, Mr Martin was no longer involved in that world,” Thorpe told the ABC.
According to the staffer’s statutory declaration, Thorpe had informed the office that she had met with Martin some hours earlier that day.
The two anonymous staffers decided to inform the party leadership in October 2021 but in an act of “don’t ask, don’t tell’’ the information was withheld from Bandt by his chief of staff, Damien Lawson. Bandt told the media yesterday he had counselled Lawson. Lawson claims he decided instead to raise the matter directly with Thorpe.
The staffers also stated Martin and Thorpe met again in Thorpe’s electorate office in February of this year.
The Rebels have been in decline in recent years due largely to the fact their national leader, Alex Vella, has been prohibited from re-entering Australia. Vella, an Australian resident for 47 years but not a citizen, took a trip to his birthplace in Malta and had his visa cancelled in 2015.
Nevertheless, the Rebels have more than 1000 patched members and 70 chapters around the country.
It is worth pondering the Rebels’ colours. Heavily tattooed men straddling Harley Davidsons get about in their leathers emblazoned with a skull bearing a confederate soldier’s cap in front of a confederate flag, undeniable symbols of white supremacy and slavery. The Rebels were originally founded in Australia in Queensland under the name Confederates.
Almost all outlaw motorcycle gangs carried a culture of white supremacy, led by the Hells Angels who formed in Fontana, California in 1948. That all changed in Australia in the early 1990s. In 1992, the Angels had a solitary chapter in Sydney and could barely scramble a cricket team of greybeards together. The Nomads, a western Sydney OMCG, began patching members from Islander and Middle East communities and everyone, including the Rebels, quickly followed suit. Membership boosted and new chapters arose to the point where turf wars over criminal activities arose and that is pretty much where we are today.
While the nature and identity of OMCGs have changed in the last 30 years, it is beyond passing strange that a Senator who has a habit of performative outrage, shrieking about colonialism and dispossession, would align herself with a group who have a history of white supremacy and the colours to prove it.
In addition to her current woes, Senator Thorpe’s office has been under review from the Department of Finance following a complaint made to the then President of the Senate, Scott Ryan and to Adam Bandt. The complaint relates to a meeting with indigenous elder, Aunty Geraldine Atkinson who was so shaken by what she described as verbal abuse from Thorpe, that she had to be treated by the parliamentary nurse.
Thorpe’s former chief of staff, David Mejia-Canales who was in the meeting, later described the senator’s conduct as “appalling” and “one of the most unprofessional displays I have ever seen, not just during the length of my career, but in my life.”
Thorpe declined to apologise.
“We enter Parliament not to make friends but to get results for our people,” Thorpe told Nine Media back in 2021.
The relationship between Thorpe and Martin needs to be properly investigated. It should fall under the bailiwick of the National Anti-Corruption Commission when it convenes. There is talk of intervention from the Parliamentary Privileges Committee and of parliamentary censure.
But the Greens and Bandt need to do more. The moral high ground the Greens love to loiter in has become a slippery slope. Thorpe’s conduct demands she have all her portfolio and committee responsibilities removed. Anything else is hollow holier than thou posturing.
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