Voice referendum live updates: Lidia Thorpe blasts ‘hurtful’ referendum

Firebrand senator Lidia Thorpe says she refuses to be downtrodden by the ongoing effects of colonisation, renewing calls for a treaty.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe casts her No vote on referendum day.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has lamented a “horrible 12 months” of voice campaigning, saying Aboriginal people will refuse to be downtrodden by colonisation “once again”.

The Victorian Senator, who has led a contingent of Indigenous Australians who oppose the voice on the basis it is not progressive enough, said a Treaty is now the only way forward for reparations.

“I am sad for my people in this country right now. It‘s been a horrible 12 months for a lot of people. Yes, No, in between, don’t know, and don’t wanna deal with it,” she told the ABC. “Black fellas have gone overseas to get away from this because it‘s been so hurtful.”

Senator Thorpe said she refused to be a victim as a result of the vote.

“We have to not allow our people to be so downtrodden once again because that seems to be repetitive in this country. It’s part of colonisation,” she said. “We need to rebuild, and rebuild at the grassroots level.”

She said any consultation moving forward had to be real, and not “tick a box consultation.”

Senator Thorpe said Indigenous Australians must band together to “make decisions for ourselves” now that a voice had been shot down.

“That‘s what a Treaty can do. That’s what truth telling can do,” she said.

“You know, all Aboriginal people I have spoken to don‘t want deaths in custody to continue. They don’t want the continuation of the stolen generation.

“You don‘t need a referendum for a treaty. And you don’t need a referendum for extra Senate seats in the parliament. I’d rather have Black fellas as senators with a vote that can change this nation than some advisory body with no teeth.”

Earlier on Saturday, Senator Thorpe said the Indigenous voice referendum had been plagued by racism, as she cast her No vote at the ballot box.

She told reporters the referendum had revealed where racism exists in Australia, and said the country should immediately “stamp it out”.

“We‘ve seen where the cancer is in this country, right?” she said. “Racism is cancer, racism is an illness, it makes people sick.”

Wearing a black t-shirt with ‘Vote No” written across her chest – a starkly different No t-shirt to those from the Fair Australia campaign – Senator Thorpe made a final plea for Australians to vote down the voice.

“This referendum has shown where the cancer is in this country, and where we need to heal this country,” she said. “Where we need to put our efforts as a nation to stamp out this ugly thing called racism.”

Senator Lidia Thorpe casts her vote in the Indigenous voice referendum at a polling station in Melbourne. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Earlier this week she revealed the Black Sovereign Movement is already mobilising against a Peter Dutton-led second referendum solely on constitutional recognition.

She also said the voice should absolutely be legislated if the referendum is shot down.

“If legislation comes into that parliament, saying that they want to set up another advisory body and it’s going to be fully representative of the people, as long as we’re not in that Constitution I’ll support it. We need all the help we can get in there,” Senator Thorpe told ABC Radio.

She later clarified she did not support the government’s proposal for a voice and said no representative body should be established “unless it is the product of free, prior and informed consent of the First Peoples of this country”.