Lidia Thorpe sees her Senate spot as the Greens ‘paying the rent’

Last week’s NAIDOC theme, “Keep the fire burning! Blak, loud & proud”, can easily describe Lidia Thorpe, the firebrand independent senator who last year quit the Greens to lead the Blak Sovereign Movement. 

But while that theme was celebrated in morning teas across the country, Thorpe’s brand of loud Blak pride continues to generate disapproval across the media and political class.

Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung mother, grandmother and activist, is quick to highlight the double standard.

“You can be Blak, loud and proud, but how dare you question the government? How dare you question a genocide?” she says when we spoke over the phone this week.