Here is the narrative of a growing political firestorm in Victoria—a story of soaring taxpayer-funded salaries, radical rhetoric, and a state government accused of blatantly ignoring the Australian public.
In suburban kitchens across Victoria, families sit under fluorescent lights counting cents. Electricity bills have skyrocketed, interest rates remain brutal, and the cost of basic groceries continues to climb. Yet just a few kilometres away, inside Melbourne’s historic Parliament House on Spring Street, a starkly different reality unfolds—one funded entirely by those same struggling taxpayers.
Inside the chamber, newly elected representatives of Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly step up to the microphone for their maiden speeches. Among the 33 assembly members taking their seats is Andrew Thorpe, the son of controversial far-left independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, alongside her sister, Lisa Rose Thorpe.
As Andrew Thorpe takes the floor, his maiden speech offers no message of national unity or shared future; instead, it delivers a sharp attack on the nation itself, opening with declarations of “stolen land.” Lisa Rose Thorpe escalates the rhetoric even further, claiming from the floor that First Nations people in Victoria are facing an “ongoing genocide.”
For millions of everyday Australians watching the broadcasts, the divisive rhetoric is a bitter pill to swallow. But the real gut-punch lies in the financial reality behind the institution. Full-time representatives in the First Peoples’ Assembly receive annual salaries reaching up to $198,000—a compensation package far higher than what the average Victorian teacher, nurse, or tradie earns after working gruelling 50-hour weeks. To working-class families choosing between filling the petrol tank or paying the power bill, watching six-figure taxpayer-funded salaries handed out to activists making anti-Australian speeches feels like a direct slap in the face.
What transforms this economic frustration into boiling rage, however, is the profound sense of democratic betrayal.
Not long ago, the Australian electorate went to the polling booths for a defining national referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The result was unmistakable: over 60 percent of Australians—and a clear majority in Victoria—voted NO, explicitly rejecting the concept of separate, race-based consultative bodies in government.
Yet, while the federal government accepted the defeat, the Victorian Labor government did the exact opposite. Bypassing the public’s clear verdict, Labor pushed full steam ahead at the state level, bankrolling Treaty negotiations and funding the First Peoples’ Assembly. To voters, the message from Spring Street was clear: your vote only counts if you agree with us.
From regional centres like Ballarat and Bendigo to the sprawling suburbs of outer Melbourne, the public backlash is growing. Everyday Victorians are demanding to know why a state government drowning in unprecedented debt continues to spend millions funding an unvoted political body, while ignoring the decisive choice Australians made at the ballot box.