A wholesale rewrite of Australia’s Constitution, a $12.50 weekly ‘rent’ fee for home-owners and 10 Aboriginal-only seats in Parliament are at the centre of Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe’s ‘treaty’ agenda for Australia.
The Greens senator and Indigenous rights campaigner brandished a ‘battle stick’ during a fiery speech at an Invasion Day protest march in Melbourne on Thursday where she claimed Australian governments are waging a ‘war’ on Indigenous communities.
‘This is a war. They are still killing us. They are still killing our babies,’ Ms Thorpe said. ‘What do we have to celebrate in our country?’
The firebrand politician – who was outed as having a secret relationship with a former senior Rebels bikie Dean Martin late last year – has an answer for how her alleged ‘war’ could end.
Ms Thorpe is pushing for First Nations people to have ‘real power’, which she says can be achieved through a treaty and then an Aboriginal-led Republic – as well as the removal of all ‘racist’ aspects of the Constitution.
The senator has also called for better representation of Indigenous people in Parliament with 10 independent seats going towards First Nations people to help maintain their ‘sovereignty’.
A rewrite of Australia’s Constitution, an Aboriginal-led Republic and ‘real power’ are just some of the changes Lidia Thorpe is pushing for after declaring there was a ‘war’ against Indigenous Australians
One campaign she is behind is a ‘Pay the Rent’ scheme that urges Australian property owners to pay a weekly ‘rent’ tax to Indigenous groups based on their ancestral claim to the land.
Under the scheme, homeowners would voluntarily pay a percentage of their income to a body led by Aboriginal elders and administered without any government oversight or intervention.
One per cent of weekly wages is the level suggested by Robbie Thorpe, a veteran Aboriginal rights activist from Melbourne who ran a similar scheme in Fitzroy in the 1990s.
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Government statistics from last August that say the median Australian employee’s earnings were $1,250 per week.
So spread evenly, all Australian wage earners could pay a median ‘rent’ of $12.50 a week, adding up to $650 a year.
The ‘Pay the Rent’ tax could apply to Indigenous people too. Anyone who owns property would pay because it would operate as a form of land tax.
Ms Thorpe and feminist author Clementine Ford have publicly supported the proposal.
Lidia Thorpe brandished a ‘battle stick’ as she addressed a crowd on the steps of the Victorian Parliament on Thursday in an Invasion Day protest
Ms Thorpe is supporting a ‘Pay the Rent’ campaign that urges Australian property owners to pay a weekly ‘rent’ tax to Indigenous groups based on their ancestral claim to the land
‘Pay the Rent’ was developed as a policy by the National Aboriginal and Islander Health Organisation (NAIHO). Pictured above, a NAIHO document
‘Pay the rent from grassroots for grassroots. No strings attached to government agenda. It assists sovereign grassroots fight the many campaigns and struggles we face everyday,’ Ms Thorpe said.
Also in the senator’s agenda is a complete rewrite of the Australian Constitution.
‘Let’s rewrite the Constitution, or let’s take out everything that is racist in the Constitution,’ she told Junkee in December.
‘Let’s update the Constitution to fit with this country today, because when it was written, when it was established in 1901, is very different to where it is in 2022.’
Her call for a change to the Constitution stems from her desire for Indigenous Australians to have ‘real power.’
Ms Thorpe has publicly criticised the call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, saying Indigenous people deserve to be more than an ‘advisory body’
Ms Thorpe has publicly criticised the call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, saying Indigenous people deserve to be more than an ‘advisory body’.
Instead she is leading the push for a treaty that could see 10 seats in Parliament go to First Nations people, and lead to an Aboriginal-led ‘Blak Republic’.
‘From the federal parliament – the poisoned chalice that it is – right through the everyday streets that we walk down, we have to rid racism and heal this country, bring everyone together through a sovereign treaty,’ she said at Thursday’s rally.
‘They want to put the colonial constitution on top of the oldest constitution on the planet … we are sovereign and this is our land. And we deserve better than an advisory body.
‘We have an opportunity to have a treaty … that could put 10 independent Blak seats in the parliament today. We want real power and we won’t settle for anything less.’
When speaking to Junkee, Ms Thorpe said the Federal government was ‘not about to give us real power’.
‘So a treaty will negotiate real power through shared sovereignty and going to the republic, we’ll have a new constitution or an updated constitution that actually has equal power with the others who say that they are sovereign, and that’s the parliament here,’ she said.
The senator said a Republic would allow First Nations people to ‘take back what was ours in the first place and share it in a way that we know how best to do’.
‘I mean our whole culture is based on sharing and caring. So a Blak Republic would ensure that everybody in this country is looked after,’ she told the publication.
‘Everybody in this country understands the true history of this country, understands or has some basic knowledge around how to look after the land that you are on and how we’ve looked after it.’
With growing controversy surrounding celebrating January 26, Ms Thorpe said another date should instead be put forward to honour Australia.
She is hoping that date could be known as the Treaty Republic Day.
