Senator Lidia Thorpe has asked her critics to stop “demonising” her for her decisions after quitting the Greens and becoming an independent.
Giving her first interview since quitting to the ABC Thorpe said:“As a black woman in the political arena,people need to check themselves. If you’re a true ally,and you believe in Aboriginal people having a say in this country,then stop demonising me for the decisions that I’m making based on a grassroots collective of sovereign back people.
“I would say,look at January 26,maybe rewind the news to January 26,it seems to be forgotten that tens of thousands of people came out for treaty before Voice but also sovereignty before Voice,” she said.
Thorpe says she will be announcing plans in coming weeks to “bring more people to the table and allow those sovereign people to have a say”.“But I also question the government and the prime minister as to why Peter Dutton was invited to meet with the working groups and not the grassroots black sovereign movement,” she said.
“I’ve never been invited. So,I will put that out there to the prime minister and the minister for Indigenous Australians that the black sovereignty grassroots movement want to meet with the two advisory groups that Labor set up and through a hand-picked process.
“Let’s bring the groups together. And it will be a conversation that we need to have. We don’t want to fight each other out in the public,we want to unite,but we have to ensure that we get some wins along the way.”