Sarah Ison and Noah Yim The Australian November 18, 2024
Controversial independent senator Lidia Thorpe says the major parties are planning to move a censure motion against her today, following her protest of King Charles III last month. She said that with the motion, the major parties were “giving her a renewed opportunity” to call out injustice and call for a Treaty.
“This motion shows where the major parties priorities lie. They don’t stand with First Peoples in this country. They stand against justice for our people, preferring instead to defend a foreign king, rather than listen to the truth,” she said.
“My allegiance is to the True Sovereigns of this country. Not some King who thinks he’s sovereign. In no way do I regret protesting the King. I would do it again. It is time this country reckons with its history, and puts a stop to the continuing Genocide on First Peoples.”
At one point during deliberations, Senator Thorpe entered the chamber to yell, “shame on you all” at the senators while the Senate President called her to order.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi blasted Labor and the Coalition for moving the censure motion.
Senator Faruqi, in comments she was forced to withdraw from the Senate, accused the two major parties of wanting to “police black women” and “police the way we disrupt, black and brown people disrupt and dissent”.
“You want us to be boxed into what a white supremacist system (says) is the right way to protest and to dissent,” she said.
“It is true that the bubble of white privilege that encapsulates this parliament, it’s a systemic issue. And that’s why we are here today debating a black senator being censured for telling the truth of the British Crown’s genocide on First Nations people and telling it the way that she wants to.
“Stop attacking, vilifying First Nations people, brown people, refugees and migrants which is what is happening, which is what is happening at the moment in this country. For once, for once sit down, sit down and listen, listen to First Nations people.”
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1/ Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe yells at King Charles after his address at Parliament House in October. Picture: Reuters
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