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

THORPE () (): I'd like to wish everyone a happy 'assimilation day'. I'm sure you all feel pretty stoked with yourselves. I see you even gave yourselves a nice round of applause. You are one step closer to solving the Aboriginal problem. Congratulations. I want to remind you that those feelings—the violence that this government inflicts every day—do not see a powerless voice in a racist Constitution as worthy of celebration. All the voices you have silenced violently are not clapping with you.

This country has a strong grassroots black sovereign movement, full of staunch and committed warriors—a movement this government has repeatedly ignored and refused to meet with. The black sovereign movement will not let what happened today get in the way of our sovereignty. It is a movement that thinks larger than the 200-year-old so-called Australian legal system. It draws on over 65,000 years of cultural knowledge and the law—our law of First Peoples, not the colonisers' law. Tomorrow, the black sovereign movement are coming here to parliament. We found some money; we scraped it together, and they're coming here to Ngunnawal and Ngambri country to talk truth to power. The black sovereign movement will be touring around this country talking truth and treaty. For everyone out there who wants to be guided by black excellence and black power, tune in and listen, and come on a truth and treaty journey with us. (Time expired)