Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the Voice.

What we heard today is shocking. The government is doing everything they can to avoid providing a definition of sovereignty. They actually cannot do it. So on what basis can they state that sovereignty is not affected by the Voice? This is a farce. What is really happening is that the government is scared of our sovereignty because if we are sovereign then what is the government?

There are only three mechanisms by which a state can acquire sovereignty—by conquest, by ceding or by settlement of unoccupied land. This land was not unoccupied. We all know that. We have also not been conquered. First Nations people are still here today and standing strong. And we have never ceded our sovereignty. So this government is not sovereign. It is simply an illegal occupier. This colony is an imperial occupation of over 250 sovereign nations.

While I welcome the efforts made towards treaties by states and territories, there is no legal basis for them. Treaties can only be negotiated between sovereigns. The states and territories are not sovereign. The Crown is a sovereign, though not over our lands, as I just laid out. We are willing to treaty with the Crown, and it is the federal government's responsibility to progress this. Treaty reaffirms our sovereignty, but it can also lead to the coexistence of sovereignties and a new framework for our society. It is the only way we can finally live together in peace in this country.

Question agreed to.