Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has responded to the,when she referred to the Queen as “the colonising her majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second”,saying that Australia needs to face its history and establish a treaty with First Nations people “to genuinely mature as a nation”.
“[The Queen’s] whole wealth has been responsible for killings around the world of First Nations people. And that was through the Commonwealth and the colonising regime,violent regime that they inflicted on many sovereign nations around the world,” Thorpe toldABC Radio Melbourne today.
“The world is talking about this country,it’s embarrassing that we do not have a treaty. We’re the only Commonwealth country in the world that does not have a treaty with its first people.
“We need to get up with the times. I’m not going into parliament and being like everybody else and taking years and years and years to get action. I’m going to speak truth and yes,truth hurts. And I’m sorry that people are hurting. But it is truth and we have to face up to it to genuinely mature as a nation.
“Everything that you see deaths in custody,incarceration,suicide,removal of children,homelessness,drunkenness,all that you see,for First Nations people in this country the oldest continuing living culture in the world,they are the symptoms of colonisation,they are symptoms of genocide.
“That’s what we are still facing in our own country today. And we need to come to terms with that. We need more truth telling,and we need a treaty.”
She also outlined other things she is seeking to achieve or has already achieved in parliament,including ensuring “no public money is going to any fossil fuel companies” and establishing an inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children.