Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe is no stranger to controversy - and she's caused more with her appearance at the National Press Club in Canberra.
Senator Thorpe quit the Greens to sit as an independent earlier this year, primarily over her lack of support for the proposed Indigenous Voice To Parliament.
Senator Thorpe, a Victorian Indigenous woman of Djab Wurrung, Gunnai, and Gunditjmara descent, has used her appearance at the Press Club to outline why she doesn't support the federal government's proposal and what she wants instead.
She says there has to be greater change in Australian society, and says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should cancel the referendum- for, amongst other reasons, the division it is causing.
“This is why we should call off the referendum. It has caused nothing but harm and division. And, for what? There won't be change until this society changes; until this society's thinking, values, attitudes and systems have been revolutionised in order to ensure real self-determination."
Senator Thorpe says, despite her opposition to the proposal, she won't actively campaign for the no vote, and is actually still open to negotiations with the government that might secure her support for the Voice to Parliament.
But, for now, she says the Voice to Parliament proposal insults the intelligence of Indigenous Australians, and offers Indigenous Australians false hope.
"It promises to fix the Aboriginal problem. It is false hope because it is tricking people into genuinely believing that a powerless advisory body is going to protect our country and sacred sites, save our lives, keep our babies at home? The Voice is the window-dressing for constitutional recognition. We have rejected constitutional recognition before."
Senator Thorpe says the proposed Voice To Parliament would be a relatively ineffectual advisory body.
She wants a treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians instead.
She acknowledges that will take quite a bit of time, but says it has to start as soon as possible.
She says she will keep fighting for a treaty, regardless of whether the yes vote or no vote wins at the referendum.
"I think that whatever way, yes or no, that we will continue to fight for treaty. We will continue to fight to have our sovereignty acknowledged in this country. I don't think a yes or no result is going to make any difference, regardless of what it is."
Senator Thorpe says, to end colonialism in Australia, there has to be implementation of the recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the 1997 Bringing Them Home report into the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, and the 2007 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Senator Thorpe also says Australians have to be willing to face hard truths, rather than romanticised notions of Indigenous sovereignty.
She says she still believes Australia is a racist country and reactions to previous attempts at reconciliation, such as the famous walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge at the start of the century, have shown that Australia is too racist to move forward yet.
"It is a racist country. Twenty years ago in the reconciliation movement, in fact, 22 years ago I was there, again, I was pregnant with another kid, walking across the bridge in Sydney. The ultimate outcome of the reconciliation movement back then was that the country was too racist to reconcile."
The senator's opposition to the Voice to parliament proposal isn't all moral or spiritual.
She says negotiations for a treaty are needed because other forms of trying compensate Indigenous Australians such as paying financial compensation for land and natural resources, could send Australia broke.
The senator also isn't afraid to take aim at those who might otherwise broadly be on her side, politically.
She says some of those who say they are trying to help Indigenous people by voting in favour of the Voice to Parliament are actually guilty of paternalism and patronising Indigenous Australians.
And she believes that's racist.
"Even with a yes vote outcome then it's still a denial of what the Black Sovereign Movement is about and it's hand-on-heart do-gooders who think they know what's best for us, so that's a form of racism as well."
