Lidia Thorpe blames Anthony Albanese for Nazi video during Indigenous voice to parliament campaign

A video of a masked man threatening Lidia Thorpe, burning an Aboriginal flag and doing the Nazi salute was condemned by Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton.

Progressive No campaigner Lidia Thorpe has vowed to speak out in the final nine days of the voice referendum campaign and says she’s not scared, after releasing a video of a masked man threatening her, burning an Aboriginal flag and doing the Nazi salute.

The independent senator’s defiance came as Anthony Albanese, senior ministers and Peter Dutton denounced the “quite horrific” and “unhinged” video, which Senator Thorpe blamed on the Prime Minister.

The Australian Federal Police is investigating the video, which has been taken down from X, and the account that posted it has been deactivated.

“The racist Constitution came out of this building,” Senator Thorpe said outside the Royal Exhibition Building, which was home to Australia’s first parliament.

“It’s caused nothing but pain and misery for my people in this country. The referendum is an act of genocide against my people. And the Prime Minister knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Four months I wasn’t allowed to be in my own home because people want to kill me out there. They don’t want my voice to be heard over the next nine days. They want to feel good about the referendum … I’m not hiding for the next nine days. You’re gonna hear from me and you are gonna see me and I am not scared.”

Mr Albanese, who has watched the video, said there was no place for Nazi rhetoric in Australian politics and he had spoken to Senator Thorpe and the AFP.

“I have unfortunately seen that video and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It is quite horrific, that someone who is self-declared by his actions and his words a neo-Nazi is out there, showing such disrespect,” he told 10 News.

“I think overwhelmingly Australians are generous people.”

Mr Dutton said the video was completely unhinged, unacceptable and should be condemned in the strongest terms, while accusing Mr Albanese of dividing the country.

“You’re talking about family members against family members, communities against communities, and it gives rise in this sort of environment to radical lunatics to make comments like they’ve made in relation to Senator Thorpe. I condemn it, absolutely,” he said.

The Nazi video emerged as tensions between the Yes and No camps increased, with Indigenous leader Noel Pearson slamming Mr Dutton for “rewriting history” after he claimed Mr Albanese didn’t water down the voice model because “Alan Joyce and others” told him not to.

“The government has taken up what Indigenous people proposed in the Uluru Statement,” Mr Pearson said. “This is entirely our proposal, it is just that the current government, Labor, did what the previous government hesitated about for too long.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott said on ABC radio on Thursday that Aboriginal people “should be encouraged to integrate into the mainstream” and Australia should “end the separatism which has bedevilled Indigenous policy for many decades now”. He said that could be done by governments upholding the same standards for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and empowering people to have a real choice.

“Unfortunately too often policy has encouraged Aboriginal people to stay … at arm’s length from the rest of Australia and to operate by somewhat different standards,” Mr Abbott said.

“This is why in remote Australia, where the problems are most acute, you’ve got the kids not going to school, adults not going to work and the ordinary law of the land not always being properly enforced.”

Mr Pearson said the former prime minister was “running around almost with a pith helmet, from colonial days”.

“He’s proposing a kind of fantasy that somehow Australia will go back to the 19th century. That’s not gonna happen. Our culture is here to stay,” he said.

“We insist on our right to be recognised as the first peoples of this country and we’re about nine days away from doing that.”