An incoming senator who doesn’t identify as Australian has been slammed for backtracking and declaring she will swear allegiance to the Queen to collect a $211,250 salary.
Lidia Thorpe, who lost her seat at the 2018 Victorian election after only a year as a state MP, has been chosen by the Greens party faithful to replace former leader Richard Di Natale in federal Parliament in August.
She defeated prominent Queen’s counsel barrister Julian Burnside in a ballot of Greens members to fill a casual vacancy to be a senator for Victoria – a role that pays a base salary of $211,250 a year.
Ms Thorpe has hit back at her critics accusing her of hypocrisy, pointing out white politicians who favoured a republic over a constitutional monarchy, like former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, weren’t unfairly labelled as hypocrites when they swore allegiance to the Queen.
The first indigenous woman elected to the Victorian Parliament last year declared to Harry Potter actress Miriam Margoyles she didn’t regard herself as Australian.
Incoming senator Lidia Thorpe, who doesn’t identify as Australian, has been slammed for backtracking and declaring she will swear allegiance to the Queen to collect a $211,250 salary
‘I don’t identify as being Australian. It’s a concept that’s been imposed on our people since we’re invaded,’ she told the Almost Australian documentary, which aired last month on the ABC.
‘The colonisers came and set up the colony which they now call Australia.
‘Mass genocide occurred.’
Australian law experts, Professor Anne Twomey from the University of Sydney and Professor George Williams from the University of New South Wales, told Daily Mail Australia that under Section 42 of the Constitution, Ms Thorpe could not be sworn in as a senator unless she pledged an oath or an allegiance to the Queen, Australia’s head of state.
Following that advice, Ms Thorpe told her Facebook followers she would pledge allegiance to the Queen to become a senator in the federal Parliament.
‘I swore allegiance to the Queen when I became MP for Northcote, and I’ll do it again in Canberra in August,’ she said.
Thorpe, who became the first indigenous woman elected to the Victorian Parliament last year, declared to Harry Potter actress Miriam Margoyles she didn’t regard herself as Australian
Michael Atkinson, a former Labor attorney-general of South Australia, suggested Thorpe follow the example of UK MPs from Northern Ireland who refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen, denying them the chance to vote in the House of Commons
Ms Thorpe in November 2017 became the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian Parliament when she won the inner-Melbourne seat of Northcote at a by-election following the death of former Labor minister Fiona Richardson.
She lost her seat at general elections a year later, as Labor’s Kat Theophanous, the daughter of a former state MP, won back the seat which the ALP had previously held uninterrupted since 1927.
Ms Thorpe said white MPs who favoured a republic over a constitutional monarchy, including former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull, weren’t labelled as hypocrites as she had been.
‘I identify as a Gunai Gunditjmara woman first and foremost,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I want to enter parliament as a unifying force, and to make sure that all Aboriginal people feel they’re represented by our parliament.
‘The hypocrisy here is not having the same standards for white Republicans as Aboriginal women.
‘Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t labelled as a hypocrite when he chaired the Republic Advisory Committee despite swearing an oath to the Queen, why is my national identity as an Aboriginal woman in parliament controversial?’
Ms Thorpe was mocked on social media for declaring she didn’t identify as Australian despite aspiring to sit in federal Parliament.
Michael Atkinson, a former Labor attorney-general of South Australia, suggested she follow the example of UK MPs from Northern Ireland who refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen because they are from the Irish Republican political party Sinn Fein, denying them the chance to vote in the House of Commons.
‘A principled way forward for new Victorian Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe is to refuse, like Sinn Fein, to take the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty and abstain from the Chamber,’ he tweeted.
Ms Thorpe told her Facebook followers she would after all pledge allegiance to the Queen to become a senator in the federal Parliament, after constitutional law experts professor Anne Twomey and George Williams said failing to do so meant she couldn’t sit in the Senate
Former Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger suggested swearing an oath of allegiance to the Queen, after declaring she didn’t identify as an Australian, would make Thorpe a hypocrite.
‘The Greens say that they’re true to their principles, this is the thing the Greens are founded on, this freakish, nutty sort of caveman and woman view of the world,’ he told Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt.
‘To this new senator, you’ll be sitting outside the Senate because you will not swear allegiance to the Queen and if you do you are a gross hypocrite and shouldn’t be there.
‘She won’t do that and I presume she won’t be a senator.’
Mr Kroger argued that someone who ‘doesn’t identify as Australian’ could not possibly swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen under Section 42 of the Constitution ‘which she has to do, as every member of Parliament has to do, before they can take their seat’.
‘If she won’t swear allegiance to the Queen, which obviously she won’t if she’s not even an Australian,’ he said.
Former Labor cabinet minister Stephen Conroy said Ms Thorpe’s comments were inflammatory.
Ms Thorpe in November 2017 became the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian Parliament when she won the inner-Melbourne seat of Northcote at a by-election following the death of former Labor minister Fiona Richardson
Former Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger suggested swearing an oath of allegiance to the Queen, after declaring she didn’t identify as an Australian, would make her a hypocrite
‘Most of her language today was very inflammatory,’ he told Sky News.
Members of federal Parliament from both sides of politics have pledged allegiance to the Queen despite favouring constitutional change to turn Australia from a constitutional monarchy into a republic.
A referendum for a republic was lost in November 1999, with the ‘yes’ case receiving just 45 per cent of the national popular vote, and failing to win a majority in any state or territory outside of the Australian Capital Territory.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Thorpe for a right of reply.
Former Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger suggested swearing an oath of allegiance to the Queen, after declaring she didn’t identify as an Australian, would make Thorpe a hypocrite. Lidia Thorpe is pictured in November 2017 making her maiden speech to the Victorian Parliament as the first indigenous, female MP