Lidia Alma Thorpe (born 18 August 1973)[1] is an Aboriginal Australian (Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung[2][3]) independent politician.

[6] Thorpe has received media attention for her support of the Blak Sovereign Movement and her criticism of the legitimacy of Australian political institutions, which she views as the legacy of colonialism.

"[14] Her first job was working with her uncle Robbie Thorpe at the Koori Information Centre at 120 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, which at that time was "a hub of Black political activity".

[24][25] Thorpe was the Australian Greens Victoria portfolio holder for Aboriginal Justice, Consumer Affairs, Skills and Training, Sport and Mental Health.

[6] The meeting was organised as part of Thorpe's campaign to implement clan-based treaties, which would recognise the approximately 100 Aboriginal clans in Victoria.

[27] Thorpe lost her seat to Labor candidate Kat Theophanous at the 2018 Victorian state election,[28] with her term finishing on 19 December 2018.

[18] She told ABC Radio Melbourne: "We need to have a good look at ourselves and have a review of what this election has done to our party, losing quite a considerable amount of Greens members."

She said Labor ran a "dirty campaign" against her but conceded that negative coverage due to internal party scandals had also contributed to her defeat.

[28] In June 2020, Thorpe was preselected by Victorian Greens members to fill the federal Senate vacancy created by former leader Richard Di Natale's resignation.

Aboriginal, conservative senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price denounced Thorpe's comments as "divisive" and "childish," and called for her dismissal from the parliament.

After an instruction by Labor the President of the Australian Senate Sue Lines and interjections from others that the oath must be taken word-by-word, Thorpe recited the pledge once more, this time omitting the two words.

Van denied the allegation as "disgusting," "unfounded and completely untrue," though he admitted that in 2021 he had moved his office after Thorpe had submitted complaints about "his conduct in parliament."

[48] While holding the justice portfolio for the Greens party and serving on the joint parliamentary law-enforcement committee, Thorpe was in a relationship with Dean Martin, ex-president of the Rebels outlaw biker gang.

In August 2021, when confidential, law-enforcement committee, briefing documents concerning motorcycle gangs arrived in her office, one of her staffers urged her to inform the party leader but she failed to do so.

She told the staffer that "she was being really careful", in that she used encrypted social media to communicate with Martin, and that she was deleting conversations between them weekly, while, ostensibly, they would never meet at either one's home.

The committee found that Thorpe did not disclose any sensitive information to Martin, but stated she should have declared their relationship to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest.

[56] On 6 February 2023, Thorpe announced that she would resign from the Greens to become an independent senator, sitting on the cross-bench, over disagreements concerning the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

[62] In an estimates hearing held in June 2024, which examined covid-19 stimulus funding, Thorpe asked land-council executives whether a grant equal to some $400,000 had been diverted by the Northern Land Council, which represents Aboriginals, towards building at the Twin Hill Station cattle business company a "holiday house" for Marion Scrymgour, indigenous politician and Lingiari federal MP.

[68][69] In the aftermath of the incident, she was asked about the oath she had recited and signed during her swearing-in process, in which she had sworn allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II and "her heirs".

[74] The morning after her suspension, Thorpe entered the Senate through the press gallery and yelled "Free Palestine" with her fist raised before departing of her own accord.

[75] Thorpe also attended a rally outside the building during which she described the "disciplinary colonial actions" levelled against her as a "badge of honour" and stated that she felt the Senate was a "very violent workplace" consisting of "mainly white men in suits, who look down on people like me.

Thorpe led a walk-out of the Uluru convention, believing that it was "hijacked by Aboriginal corporations and establishment appointments and did not reflect the aspirations of ordinary Indigenous people".

A spokesman for the Sydney Mardi Gras event stated that, although they respect every individual's right to protest, her interruption of the parade had "significant implications for the safety of participants and audience.

[82] Thorpe claimed her treatment by the police constituted assault, while the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, stated the incident was "disturbing and concerning.

[6] Her mother, Marjorie Thorpe, was a co-commissioner for the Stolen Generations inquiry[6] that produced the Bringing Them Home report in the 1990s and later a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and a preselected Greens federal candidate for Gippsland.

[14] Her uncle is activist Robbie Thorpe, who is linked to some of the earliest struggles for Aboriginal Australian self-determination, and also involved with the Pay The Rent campaign.

[14] Thorpe was reportedly in a relationship with Gavan McFadzean, manager of the Climate Change and Clean Energy Program at the Australian Conservation Foundation, from 2019 to 2022.