Lidia Thorpe WON’T campaign against the Voice, despite rumours of alliance with enemies

Firebrand Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has said she ‘will not campaign no’ in upcoming referendum for a vote to parliament for Indigenous Australians.

But it has emerged that she has previously asked One Nation leader Pauline Hanson to block a constitutional amendment.

On March 27, 2017, three years before Ms Thorpe entered the Federal Parliament, she tweeted Ms Hanson: ‘Pauline help us stop the constitutional changes.

“Aborigines say no to constitutional change,” the senator wrote at the time.

But on Tuesday, Ms Thorpe said: ‘The tweet relates to an old debate surrounding the Liberals hijacking constitutional recognition.

“Pauline Hanson is not a friend of First Nations people, I have no interest in working with her,” she told the… Sydney Morning Herald.

It also emerged Tuesday that Ms Thorpe met last week with Aboriginal businessman Warren Mundine, who is strongly opposed to The Voice, but they remember the meeting differently.

Ms. Thorpe, who was contacted for comment, previously dismissed the Voice as a “waste of money” that could be better spent in Indigenous communities.

She, like Mr Mundine, would prefer a treaty with Indigenous Australians rather than The Voice.

But Ms Thorpe, who is an Aboriginal, said she “hasn’t talked about supporting a ‘no’ campaign by voice (with Mr Mundine) and I won’t be campaigning ‘no’.”

Her party’s stance is that it has all elements of the… Uluru statement from the heart -truth, treaty and the vote – to become law.

“I want to make sure that the truth and the treaty are taken as seriously as Voice,” Thorpe said.

“I’m focused on this. I don’t have time for negative campaigns that will only hurt those it affects most: First Nations people.

“I don’t want my people hurting any more.”

Mr Mundine remembered his meeting with Mrs Thorpe differently. “The Voice to Parliament was our most important conversation,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“Lidia Thorpe and I are very much behind (wanting) a treaty (rather than the Vote). I’ve been supporting that for over 30 years,” he said.

Ms Thorpe has made headlines in recent months for delivering a black power salute in the Senate and for calling Queen Elizabeth a “colonizer.”

Last month Ms Thorpe made the extraordinary claim that Australia is still ‘at war’ with the Aborigines and called for a treaty to bring ‘peace’ to the nation.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a strong supporter of the Voice to Parliament and outlined the question Australians might ask about the issue in a speech at the Garma Festival in July.

“If it works, people will wonder why we didn’t do it sooner. I see this similar to the apology for the stolen generations or the 1967 referendum or the indigenous title,” Mr Albanese said.

But despite the plan to hold a referendum on The Voice next year, the government has not yet made a decision on financing the yes and no campaigns.

Mr Mundine, who is a former Liberal candidate and previously a member of Labor for decades, said both sides of the campaign should be given federal funding to present their cases.

“If they don’t support either side, we know we’re in a huge battle with a giant, fire-breathing dragon because the yes vote has all this corporate backing and government backing,” he said.

Mr. Mundine is highly critical of the line taken by many large companies to unconditionally support and fund the Voice.

‘Companies talk about training their staff. That seems very sinister to me. It sounds like a re-education camp in communist China.

“(When) I brought up the matter of, they got people talking and prosecuting the no case, there’s all this silence, you hear the crickets.

“So I challenge all of these companies – if you’re honest about getting the Vote to Parliament education, you should have at least one person in that room who doesn’t agree with it.

“And you should give them the freedom to say why they don’t agree,” he said.

Mr Mundine said the broad support from business is a ‘symptom of wakefulness’.

“I’ve been very honest about this. I do business, I have shareholders in my companies and I know a lot of business people in this country,” he said.

“They have been bullied in this position. There is no possibility for deviant votes. It is disgraceful behavior by these awakened companies.

“The corporates have been sucked into this process and frankly I think it’s a joke when it comes to this.”

Not only does Mr Mundine think that business in Australia has been duped for supporting The Voice, but he also denounces the lack of details being provided to the public.

“If they really believe in studying this – it should only take five seconds because nobody knows what the Vote to Parliament is – they should have votes for and against.

If not, then they are clearly not loyal to their employees. I know Aboriginal workers who work in some of these big companies that don’t support the Voice.’

Any referendum held in Australia must be passed by a majority of voters in four out of six states to become law, leaving some who are not parties to it to wonder where best to focus their opposition efforts.

“Victoria has become Australia’s protest capital,” Mr Mundine said with a laugh, but said the opposition would be a broad church.

‘We are going to work with like-minded people. We will be more representative of the Australian public than these wakeful companies.

“We will have all the races and cultures that have come to Australia to make Australia their home, as well as a large number of Aboriginal people who disagree with the Stem because it is not Aboriginal culture.”

Mundine is also planning a national tour with Country Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to promote the no case and plans to work with Pauline Hanson on the matter.

‘I sit down and talk to people because we don’t have money (for the no campaign),’ said Mr Mundine.

Before the 1999 republic referendum, the then federal government under John Howard funded both sides of the debate.

Both sides of the 2017 same-sex marriage mail survey were also government-funded.