Green Left’s Alex Bainbridge caught up with Independent Senator and DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara Lidia Thorpe on the eve of Ecosocialism 2024 to ask about Labor’s promises and record on addressing First Nations’ injustices.
How would you characterise the Anthony Albanese Labor government’s approach to First Nations peoples’ rights and needs?
They’re weak. They’re not a party for our people. The other night on Wurundjeri country, Gary Foley talked about former Labor prime ministers and how they’ve all done wrong when they’ve been in power. Albanese is no different.
I wasn’t impressed by the referendum debacle. Albanese continues to perpetrate the colonial violence on our people: he’s no different to the last.
Do you think the Voice referendum has put the struggle for First Nations rights in a weaker or stronger position?
It’s put us in a stronger position. I think if the referendum had succeeded, we would have been going backwards.
To have a powerless advisory body, with two old white men in charge — Albanese and [Peter] Dutton — dictating the terms, shows how much power [the Voice] would have had.
It resets the conversation and takes us back to the fact that we’ve been violated since the invasion: the war began with those boats arriving and the war has not ended.
So, unless we have a treaty, or some form of peacemaking agreement, we can’t move forward. We have that opportunity now to continue to fight for treaty.
We need everyone that voted “Yes”, or voted the “sovereign No”, to support treaty.
Treaty is what will benefit everybody in this country, including our water and land.
What would a meaningful treaty look like?
It has to have free, prior and informed consent from the family clan groups. We know what a language map looks like — yes, there are some disputed areas — but it’s a good snapshot of how many language groups we do have in this country.
Each and every one of those language groups must have free, prior and informed consent, and determine for themselves what treaty looks like for them.
So if for example, Gunnai, my mob, say that we don’t want a coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley, or a nuclear power plant, then we can say no. That should be the right of all of our people across this country.
But on top of that we should be able to empower ourselves economically. That would mean that if we are 3-4% of the population, then we want 3-4% of the gross national product, the stolen wealth that this country continues to take away from us.
A treaty can be so good for all of us, but particularly for First Peoples whose land it is.
We should be able to determine what happens on our land, when it happens and be free of the violence.
Do you have any thoughts about the process for a treaty or treaties?
We can’t have Albanese or Dutton deciding what treaty looks like. It has to happen at the grassroots level, and we particularly want young people involved.
It has to be grassroots-led and that’s where those family clan groups, or those language groups, need to self-determine what they want. It can happen at the local government area. We don’t need state and federal governments: we can work with our local government areas to do treaties in communities at the grassroots level.
We need to show state and federal parliaments that we don’t need them: we can sort our own business out locally.
We need to set an example of how it can be done.
I’ve seen some good conversations happening at local government area with Traditional Owner groups. That’s the way forward.
What are some immediate measures to improve the lives of First Nations people?
Well, they need to stop killing us.
We need to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody — now three decades old.
They say they’ve implemented them, but they haven’t.
We need to stop our children being taken away from their families and communities. We need those recommendations implemented.
We need to stop the destruction of country; stop the destruction of water. So, we need rights.
We need to be able to say “We don’t want to gas our country”: we want the right to say “No”.
Currently there’s no chance of that and that’s where Labor is disingenuous in saying that they are the party for First Peoples — when we’re fighting the same people to maintain song lines and sea country.
We need to end the war and stop the violence.
And, as you know, they could do that this week in Parliament: they could implement the remainder of those recommendations at the federal level and save people’s lives. But Labor chooses not to do that.
Do you have any comments on the colonial policy of children being stolen?
You know what? Twenty four thousand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are in out-of-home care today. It’s a crisis.
It was a crisis last year. It was a crisis when they came out with those 54 recommendations [Bringing Them Home report] and that’s more than 20 years old.
So, the system is racist.
Every time we have to deal with the systems, whether state or federal governments, we are violated.
We are violated from the very systems that are meant to serve and protect us.
So we need fundamental change to decolonise these colonial inventions that weren’t made for Black people. They weren’t made for women.
And parliaments are old; they still follow the old rulebook of the old white men in the 1900s, who created the problem that we are still dealing with today.
Talking about history, you have you consistently raised the importance of truth-telling as a first step in remedying injustices in the settler colony. What do you think that needs to involve? What would that look like?
We have to look at previous examples: for instance we can look at South Africa with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
We need the truth to be told, but we also need the power to call people to be accountable.
Look at what’s going on in Victoria with the great Yoorrook Justice Commission. They are subpoenaing ministers to come and answer for past policies, which, mind you, still happen.
To see the police apologise for their behaviours in 2024 was laughable, actually, when our people are still dying at the very hands of the Victorian Police.
We need that power, that royal commission power, to bring people in.
But there also there needs to be serious repercussions.
They can’t just say “sorry” and think that all is well. They need to say “sorry” and then pay the consequences.
There needs to be consequences, whether that is funding or reparations. But people need to be held accountable and not get away with what they’ve been able to do to us for so long.
Truth-telling will set us free.
Is there anything else that you wanted to say to the Ecosocialism 2024 conference?
To all the allies out there, thank you for inviting me along. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there in person.
We’ve got two weeks of federal parliament and there are a lot of dodgy deals going on. There’s a lot of legislation that this government are trying to ram through.
Thank you for your allyship and your solidarity. You’re always a staunch crew, but we need to maintain the pressure.
We need to free Palestine. We need to stop Black deaths in custody and we need a treaty. I hope that you can all be part of that and good luck with the rest of your conference.