Subscribe
I still remember the first and last time I interviewed Lidia Thorpe. At the time, she was not Senator but just an Aboriginal activist. It was a hot afternoon when I called Thorpe from my office in New Delhi and she answered. I then put across the questions to her.
What struck me most during the interview was that Thorpe was very clear-headed. She knew what she wanted: That Australia sign a treaty with its indigenous Aboriginal peoples who were sovereign nations when the British under Arthur Philip came calling at Botany Bay on January 26, 1788, today celebrated as ‘Australia Day’ and decried by Aboriginal activists as a ‘Day of Mourning’ like the then-activist Thorpe.
The interview went well. This was in 2020. Much water has flown down the Darling, Murray and Yarra since then. On October 6 that year, she became the first Aboriginal woman to represent Victoria in the Senate. Thorpe is also the first Aboriginal federal parliamentarian from the Australian Greens Party.
In 2022, she was re-elected and ironically had to swear allegiance to the British Crown. That is something that Nova Peris, a former senator and the first Aboriginal woman in the Australian parliament, pointed out in a post on X after Thorpe heckled King Charles III and Queen Camilla of Great Britain on October 21. The British monarch and his consort are on a 9-day state visit to Australia. Charles is the Head of State of Australia, though conversations to make it a republic have been going on, including referendums which have asked the Australian people precisely this question: Should Australia be a republic?
“In 2022, Senator Thorpe herself affirmed allegiance to the Crown during her swearing-in ceremony, as required by Section 42 of the Australian Constitution, stating: “I do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors according to law.” This is a reminder that, regardless of personal beliefs, respecting our nation’s constitutional framework is essential, especially as an elected representative. If Senator Thorpe was not on board with this, she should not have accepted her position and made her affirmation in the first place,” Peris wrote in her post.
Thorpe’s foul-mouthed outburst (‘F*** the colony’ and ‘You are not my king’, she shouted) is testament to the fact that reconciliation in Australia between its Aboriginal and White Anglo-Celtic settler populations is a delicate and very complex process.
Aboriginal people have decried the ‘Terra Nullus’ doctrine that the British used to takeover Australia upon ‘discovering’ it. Since it was ‘No One’s Land’, they stated, it was theirs.
In her interview to Down To Earth, Thorpe had called Terra Nullus a ‘lie’ and the very foundation of Australia a ‘lie’.
British colonisation of Australia was marked by wars and massacres of the Aboriginal peoples, one of the oldest surviving human cultures today.
Aboriginal people responded to the takeover of their land through guerrilla war. There is the famous and earliest example of Pemulwuy, a traditional healer and lawman of the Eora people of Paramatta in Greater Syndney. There is also the Cullin-la-Ringo massacre of white settlers in 1861.
Almost 240 years of colonisation have taken their toll on Aboriginal people. I remember seeing a group of Aboriginal people sitting on the road in Cairns in the tropical north of Australia during my own personal visit to the country in 2016. While I could not get a closer look, I could see that the group appeared to be pensive about something. They were the only Aboriginal people I saw during my visit.
The Australian government itself recognises the disadvantages that Aboriginal people suffer from. “Socioeconomic disadvantage is linked to poorer health outcomes. Social determinants explain an estimated 35% of the health gap between First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians,” its own portal notes.
Attempts at reconciliation have been hard. Last year, Australia voted against recognising the continent’s First Nations on October 14, 2023.
The ‘Voice To Parliament’ was Australia’s first referendum after 1999, when the former British colony voted against becoming a republic. It asked Australians whether their indigenous counterparts should be recognised in the country’s 122-year-old constitution by appointing an advisory body that would give Aboriginal people a greater say in decision-making.
Over 60 per cent of Australians voted against having such an advisory body.
Still, actions of a few like Thorpe are uncalled for, wrote Peris. “Australia is moving forward in its journey of reconciliation. As a nation, we are continually recognising the deep injustices faced by Aboriginal people. However, as hard as that journey is, it requires respectful dialogue, mutual understanding, and a shared commitment to healing—not divisive actions that draw attention away from the progress we are making as a country,” she wrote.
