‘The migrants are all of you’: Lidia Thorpe turns immigration debate on its head in blistering Senate address
CANBERRA — In a dramatic confrontation that has sent shockwaves through the federal parliament, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe has completely upended the national conversation on immigration, housing, and Indigenous rights, launching an uncompromising attack on what she terms the ongoing “colonial project”.
During a highly charged Senate sitting, the Gunnai, Gunditjmara, and Djab Wurrung politician delivered a fierce address that fundamentally challenged her parliamentary colleagues’ anxieties surrounding immigration numbers. Turning the rhetoric of border control back on the chamber, Senator Thorpe argued that the true crisis of migration began not with modern arrivals, but with the first European ships.
Let’s talk about immigration,” Senator Thorpe told a stunned chamber. “It seems some people are hung up about it in this country. Let’s talk about the first migrants here arriving by boat, bringing disease and blankets laced with poison—Cook’s legacy.”
‘You are the migrants’
In a speech that bypassed standard political niceties, the Victorian Senator painted a stark, devastating picture of early European settlement, drawing a direct line between historic atrocities and modern systemic failures.
“Let’s talk about how these migrants didn’t conform to the laws of this land; in fact, they attempted to erase the oldest continuing culture on the planet,” she declared. “They didn’t speak our languages. They didn’t care for country and water. They caused mass extinction. They didn’t assimilate. They brought weapons and violence and started massacres across this continent.”
As tensions simmered in the Senate, Thorpe delivered a dramatic ultimatum to the majority of the population descended from non-Indigenous backgrounds:
“When we talk about this country being swamped by migrants, don’t forget that the migrants are all of you. Migrants and their descendants make up 97 per cent of the population of so-called Australia today. This land was already inhabited by us, the First Peoples of these lands. We have never been anywhere else.”
Crucially, Senator Thorpe drew a sharp line between those seeking safety and those she considers historic and modern exploiters: “We welcome those seeking refuge here, those seeking to live in peace and with respect for our country, law and people. Those we do not welcome are the colonisers and the racists. We are the real sovereign people of this country.”
The Housing Crisis: ‘Homeless on our own country’
The explosive speech comes as part of a broader, aggressive push by the Independent Senator across intertwining portfolios of housing and First Nations rights. Just weeks prior, at a major housing summit, Thorpe laid bare the visceral reality facing Indigenous Australians, declaring that First Peoples had been made “homeless on our own country” by successive colonial governments.
Thorpe has repeatedly lashed federal, state, and territory housing policies, branding the Northern Territory government “the most racist government I’ve seen in my lifetime” over its punitive justice changes and failures to provide safe, liveable remote housing amidst extreme climate conditions.
For Thorpe, the current housing emergency—where Indigenous people are ten times more likely to experience homelessness—is an inescapable symptom of land theft. She has vehemently called for a total halt to the sale of “Crown land,” which she insists must be properly recognised as “Treaty land” belonging to unceded sovereign nations.
Rejecting mainstream political consensus, including the national Closing the Gap agreement—which she slammed as offering mere “rations and band-aids”—Thorpe is demanding a standalone National First Peoples Housing Plan and a mandatory 10 per cent allocation of all new public housing stock exclusively for Indigenous communities.
As the independent crossbench continues to exert significant leverage in a fractured parliament, Senator Thorpe’s fiery rhetoric underscores a deepening, radicalised divide over the true identity, ownership, and future of modern Australia.