But in comments that add to the confusion around the Greens’ policy,Thorpe said it was incorrect to characterise the party’s position as broadly supportive of the Voice.
“That’s not the position. The position is that we’re in negotiation and that we’re not going to say that we support something when that undermines our negotiation power,” she said.
“So we don’t support anything. We don’t support a No campaign,we don’t support a Yes campaign until we see Labor action those recommendations that save our people’s lives and provides a guarantee that our sovereignty won’t be ceded.”
She called for Labor “to provide legal evidence” from an international constitutional expert that Indigenous sovereignty would not be ceded by being “incorporated into the colonial Constitution”,adding:“If we get evidence to the contrary – and we don’t have an opportunity for treaties – then we are doing the wrong thing.”
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the Voice would not have any impact on sovereignty,but would instead “improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It will ensure the government hears from local communities about local solutions and how to address existing policies that aren’t working”.
Thorpe’s hardline negotiating position has been criticised by Voice advocates as political gamesmanship,including by high-profile Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton,a leading member of the Albanese government’s Indigenous Voice referendum working group,who last year accused the Greens of demanding “impossible” trade-offs.
Thorpe’s position also appears to be at odds with previous positions advanced by her federal colleagues,including leader Adam Bandt.
In the lead-up to the federal election last May,Bandt described the Voice to parliament as something that “cannot fail”,saying the party’s policy was to “improve,not block vital legislation” and it would work to further truth,treaty and voice.
“We may only get one chance at a referendum to enshrine a Voice to parliament in the Constitution,” he tweeted in April.
In October,Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young declared she would be doing “everything I can” to support the Yes case.
Asked whether her position conflicted with the broader Greens membership – Resolve polling from December showed 85 per cent of Greens voters backed the Voice – Thorpe said she took her guidance from the party’s grassroots First Nations network,known as the Blak Greens.
“So if there’s anybody who disagrees with that policy,well then they need to chase it up with the Blak Greens,” she said.
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Thorpe,who famously walked out of the Uluru Dialogues in protest,has long advocated for treaty-making and truth-telling to be the priority,rather than Voice – a position she repeated on Wednesday,saying:“this country needs to know the truth before they vote on something”.
She suggested a treaty process could deliver dedicated First Nations senate seats,which she said would be “real power” rather than an advisory body whose advice “was either taken or it’s not”.
With Paul Sakkal
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley.Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.