Lidia Thorpe has campaigned against the Voice to Parliament for months. Now, two days before every Australian goes to a vote, she says she’s ‘absolutely’ in favour of a type of Voice

Lydia Thorpe has sensationally backtracked on comments she made hours ago that she would ‘absolutely’ support the One Voice bill.

The Independent-turned-Greens senator said at around 7.45am on Thursday that she would support a Legitimate Voice, despite her opposition to writing the proposal into the constitution.

When asked if she had any concerns about a legitimate Voice, she said: ‘Why not?’

“If legislation comes into that Parliament saying they want to create another advisory body and it’s going to be fully representative of the people, as long as we’re not in that constitution, I’ll support it,” Ms Thorpe said. . .

“We need all the help we can get out there.”

But she later clarified that her comments should be understood in the broader context of her “steadfast position that Truth and Treaty are the first steps that must be taken to bring peace to this land.”

“I do not support the Government’s proposed Voice and no representative body should be created, in any form, unless it is the product of the free prior and informed consent of the First Peoples of this country,” she said on Twitter.

She said: “The Blak sovereign movement and the grassroots have been steadfast in their rejection of the current proposal for a powerless advisory body enshrined in the colonial constitution.

“Regardless of the outcome, the way forward starts with healing, Truth Telling, Treaty, implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and Repatriation, and implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peoples Indigenous.”

The concept of a statutory Voice is that it would perform the same functions as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s proposed body, providing advice to the government on ways to improve Indigenous services.

But the main difference is that it would not be written in the constitution.

In her current form, Ms Thorpe does not want to take part in the campaign for a Voice. But she has also repeatedly said throughout the year that she has not aligned herself with the Tory No vote.

“I oppose the Voice because the voice is a window for constitutional recognition. And that’s what we’ve been up against for more than a decade,” she said.

Mr Albanese has categorically ruled out considering the One Voice legislation to fail, arguing that it is not what Indigenous people in the Uluru Declaration asked for from the heart and would go against the will of the Australian public.

Auntie Pat Anderson, an outspoken Yes campaigner and co-chair of the Uluru Dialogue, said the reason a legal Voice ‘doesn’t work for us’ is because it will be subject to the whims and fancies of the politics of the day’.

“Our organizations don’t know if they’re funded from one government to another and when there’s a change of government, we’re back to square one.”

But Ms Thorpe said Indigenous Australians who resisted colonization and constitutional recognition would be able to begin “a real journey of healing… and truth-telling” in the wake of a successful No vote.

“The majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want the truth to be told in this country that at the end of the day, it was part of the Uluru statement that we are no longer hearing as part of this debate.

“We’re also not talking about the treaty … so I think there’s a lot to look forward to and instead of thinking we’ve been defeated, look at this as a victory.”

A successful vote in Saturday’s referendum requires a majority of Yes votes in at least four of the six states.

The indigenous senator said the referendum had given a platform to racists and her life was in danger after being targeted by a neo-Nazi video.