Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe was in Ntaria (Hermannsburg) yesterday for a sit-down with Indigenous Community Television (ICTV) and two Western Arrarnta community members who questioned her in first language on how the Indigenous Voice to Parliament compared to Treaty, whether her opposition was emboldening racist voters, and the practicalities of pursuing Treaty should a No vote succeed.
“We wanted local mob to talk to politicians who are either for or against the referendum and ask them questions about why they should vote Yes or No,” moderator, translator, ICTV reporter and himself a Western Arrarnta man from Ntaria Damien Williams told Crikey.
“It gives people from the bush a chance to speak to politicians in their own language — our language, Western Arrarnta — and have it translated so there’s no room for misinterpretation. For something as big as a referendum on the voice of a lot of these people, ironically, they don’t get the chance to do this in Australia.”
ICTV’s bush Q&A in Ntaria, 125 km west of Alice Springs, was originally designed as a panel discussion between community mob and a mix of Yes and No political and campaign voices, but Williams said that DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman Thorpe was the only one to RSVP with a hard “yes”.
Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and No campaign leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine were uncontactable, Yes23 was a “no”, NT Senator Malarndirri McCarthy gave an interview in ICTV’s Alice Springs headquarters but was not available for a sit-down in community, and MP for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour and Yes campaigner Pat Anderson both RSVP’d maybe.
“I never say no to an invitation from community, that’s how I operate. It’s protocol, it’s respect,” Thorpe told Crikey in an interview on the side of the ICTV Q&A.
In the absence of a full panel, Thorpe sat with Williams and Aboriginal health practitioners Renita Kantawara and Maryanne Malbunka under the shade of a gum tree in the Hermannsburg historic precinct. Both Western Arrarnta women were chosen by ICTV because of their cultural authority in community that came without a public profile.
“In Ntaria, there’s a thing about media always going to the same people to speak and be the voice for the community,” Williams said. “These people meeting with Senator Thorpe, they’re leaders, but not the first person people go to speak to. They’re maybe the second, third or fourth person, so I want to give these mob a chance to be first.”
The 30-minute conversation in Western Arrarnta and English covered the practicalities of a Voice (what it can and can’t do, who it does and doesn’t serve, what issues it will and won’t touch), how it compares with Treaty and truth-telling, what a No victory means for Treaty, and what it would take for Thorpe to support a Yes vote.
In short, while nothing would make the senator say Yes, there were conditions under which she would stop campaigning for No.
“I haven’t actually run a No campaign, I’m only responding to media,” Thorpe told Crikey. “But I can run a No camp. I can come out very strong and I will until [the government] promises or it shows with evidence that it is prepared to implement those recommendations [from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report] and pass the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Thorpe said she’d been in discussions with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the past few weeks and would happily keep quiet if the government did come to the table.
“It doesn’t have to be all the recommendations at once — they can announce a couple,” Thorpe said. Provided that happened — which she told Crikey was “absolutely possible” before October 14 — “I’ll shut my mouth until the referendum is done.”
After that it would be business as usual pushing Treaty, truth-telling, the rollout of recommendations for Aboriginal deaths in custody and the removal of children, and the protection of sacred sites.
From Western Arrarnta mob, Thorpe was asked whether her stance had emboldened racist voters. She said that while it might empower some, both the Yes and No campaigns were trumpeting racist rhetoric and she’d rather be able to identify a racist than not. While the No camp fell into the former, the senator said the Yes side represented the latter with white people simply wanting to feel good about doing something for Indigenous mob.
She was also asked how a failed Voice would affect Treaty given the outcome could isolate a Yes cohort more inclined to support Treaty and vindicate a No vote less likely to get behind it. She was blunt: a No result would mark October 15 as the day the nation begins a revolution for First Nations peoples.
Although Thorpe’s talking points in Ntaria were consistent with her position as a Blak sovereign leader in the city, she said the tone of conversation in community was very different from the usual lines of aggressive interrogation she’s subjected to.
“It didn’t matter what question came out, it was about the respect that was given and the respect that was shown and the country around us,” she said. “So that is very, very different to the environment and the questions I get in most places I go to.
“Except for community — that’s where the real yarns happen.”
Thorpe said it was a privilege to be part of ICTV’s “two-way” conversation in first language and hoped that through the Q&A she’d planted the seed for a community “wish list” for Western Arrarnta mob to take forward in Treaty negotiations: “What do the people of Hermannsburg want? What do they really need? If they had a wish list, what would it be? That’s a conversation that needs to begin.”
