Lidia Thorpe denies campaign against voice poll
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe says she will not campaign against the referendum on an Indigenous voice despite recent statements and her meeting with Warren Mundine.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe says she will not campaign against the referendum on an Indigenous voice despite her public statements against the reform and her recent meeting with the conservative entrepreneur who is gathering support for a no campaign, Warren Mundine.
Senator Thorpe stormed out of the 2017 Uluru convention that crafted the call for a constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament and has since described the impending referendum on the voice as a “wasted exercise and a “waste of money”. However, the Greens were the first major party to support the Indigenous voice. Before Senator Thorpe took the seat of former party leader Richard Di Natale in 2020, the Greens had been pushing for a referendum despite a joint select committee’s recommendation that more work needed to be done to put meat on the bones of what the voice would look like.
On Tuesday, Senator Thorpe said: “I will not be campaigning no”.
In a statement emailed to media outlets, Senator Thorpe said she met Mr Mundine, crossbenchers and staff to discuss the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples and “we did not discuss support for a no campaign on voice”.
When The Australian asked Senator Thorpe’s office about her meeting with no campaigner Mr Mundine on Monday, the request was handled instead by the office of Greens leader Adam Bandt. On Senator Thorpe’s behalf, Mr Bandt’s office issued a written statement in which she said that she and Mr Bandt were working with the government to progress all three elements of the Uluru statement. Senator Thorpe’s statement on Monday did not deny that she discussed her concerns about the voice referendum with Mr Mundine.
Senator Thorpe’s recent and historic comments on a constitutionally-enshrined voice have at times been awkward for the Greens. Criticising the referendum in September, Senator Thorpe again made it clear she considers a treaty a higher priority than an Indigenous advisory body.
“We don’t need a referendum to have a treaty in this country and the treaty is what our people have been fighting for (for) decades and decades,” Senator Thorpe said.
After walking out of the Uluru convention in protest with a small group of delegates in May 2017, Senator Thorpe told waiting media: “We as sovereign First Nations people reject constitutional recognition. We do not recognise the occupying power or their sovereignty”.
Mr Mundine has been working on a no campaign as key backers of an Indigenous voice to parliament urge a widening of the referendum question to include the Uluru Statement from the Heart, as the government vows to “modernise” referendum laws.
With opposition to the referendum among a diverse group of Indigenous politicians and leaders, some voice supporters are calling for a broadening of the question. They said including reference to the Uluru Statement – which also includes truth telling and treaty – would bring more Indigenous leaders “into the tent”.
The wording will be considered by a meeting of the government’s referendum working group on October 28. Reconciliation Australia board member Bill Lawson said the concerns expressed by Aboriginal leaders fearful the voice could distract from a treaty needed to be “noted and pondered”.
“The appetite to just focus on the voice … is the way the Prime Minister has been talking, both during the election campaign and since,” Mr Lawson said. “But it needs to be remembered that the Uluru Statement talks about truth telling, voice and treaty.
“If the referendum was to focus on the Uluru Statement then it would encompass all three of those elements, including a voice. That might be something that many Australians could readily support. To put the referendum forward on the whole of the Uluru Statement rather than just a part of it might be a way of being quite simple and not getting people embroiled in detail they don’t understand.”
Mr Lawson, a founding member of Reconciliation Tasmania and member of the previous Prime Minister’s expert panel for the recognition of Indigenous Australians, said including the Uluru Statement in the question would likely bring more Indigenous leaders into the Yes camp.
“The authors of the Uluru statement put it to the Prime Minister as an entity … now we’re cherry-picking out one of the three elements,” he said, stressing his views were personal.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney would not pre-empt the meeting of the Referendum Working Group on October 28, but it is understood the government remains committed to the voice as a first step in delivering the Uluru objectives.
There is also concern within government and more broadly that the question be clear and fully compliant with constitutional language. Even so, it is understood the government might back changes to the Referendum Machinery Act to ensure this and future referendum questions are in plain language and not overly legalistic.
There is also a push to scrap the Act’s requirement that the government post to all voters 2000-word arguments for the Yes and No cases. This is expected to be replaced with a more concise, digital system.
In a speech at Old Parliament House on Wednesday, Ms Burney will confirm the “modernisation” push, to be considered by the working group. “The group will consider important changes that could be made to the … Act so we can modernise how we conduct referendums in this country,” Ms Burney is expected to say. On this and on the question wording, the group’s deliberations would “guide us on the way forward”. Criticising “false claims” about the voice, she reiterated the government’s commitment to deliver it via a referendum. “And we’ll do it in this term of parliament,” she said. Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, who has previously declared the referendum to be a “waste of money”, on Tuesday declared she would “not be campaign No”.
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