Andrew Provin Interviewing Marcia Langton
Afternoon Briefing ABC TV Friday 21st October 2022
Matthew Doran (host): Indigenous leader, Marcia Langton, has also weighed into the matter, calling on the Greens to dump senator Thorpe as the party’s spokesperson for first nations people. She spoke to ABC’s political editor Andrew Probyn earlier — who broke the story alongside Jake Evans, earlier today.
Probyn: Marcia Langton. Adam Bandt says Lydia Thorpe showed a significant lack of judgement in not disclosing her relationship with an ex bikie boss. He stripped her of her/the deputy senate leadership. Has he gone far enough?
Langton: Er … No! This is a … I would of thought a extremely embarrassing for him, as leader of the Greens party … it must be embarrassing to all the members of the joint parliamentary committee on Law Enforcemen, to other parliamentarians and constituents like myself, who live in the state of Victoria, and are represented by her in the senate … in as much as she is a senator.
Probyn: He’s seen fit to keep her in a pertfolio — an important portfolio — one close to your heart. She remains spokeswoman for the Greens on indigenous Australians. Is that appropriate?
Langton: I don’t believe so Andrew. I think the portfolio should be taken away from her … ah … because of her significant lack of judgement in the matter relating to her membership of the Joint Parliamentary Law enforcement Committee and the confidential documents that committee received on law enforcement.
I have to draw the conclusion that she does not have the judgement to handle the indigenous affairs portfolio, which anyone must surely understand, consists of a range of extremely complex matters, such as closing the gap, the referendum, on the voice, and so many other issues.
I would like the Greens to totally ditchy their present set of policies, which look like they were written on the back of a bar tab and seem to amount to about seven billion dollars for reparations.
There’s no policies as such. The resistance to the voice that the Greens have shown — taking senator Thorpe’s lead — has been a nonsense, and a distraction. And here we are … disasters happening across the state of Victoria, economic difficulties, and her behaviour once again, is a distraction from the main issues.
So its not just indigenous people who are in deep trouble because of her lack of leadership.
Probyn: You’ve said the Greens are displaying a peculiar form of racism in keeping her as the party’s indigenous affairs spokeswoman. How so?
Langton: Well … they’ve chosen a person with apparently no common sense, or an inability to understand the rules … and a willingness to break the rules. And ah! … I despair … because people like Adam Bandt must surely be thinking, or perhaps trying to give the impression, that all aboriginal people are like senator Thorpe. And that’s simply not the case.
Probyn: Lidia Thorpe has called the referendum on the voice a waste of money … an she said that the treaty should be the priority. Do you want … do you need greater clarity from Adam Bandt as to where the Greens stand on the voice.
Langton: Yes … well they don’t seem to have a position. They have a big grey zone with Adam saying one thing and Lidia saying another, and then all of them saying something else the next day. So I think they need to be clear with us and with the Australian people.
This is a very important national issue. As it happens, the treaty, ah … assembly of Victoria yesterday, made a major announcement … about four steps that have been taken with progressing the treaty in Victoria. And we have treaty processes here in Victoria, in the Northern Territory and in Queensland, and these are complicated matters that require sensible leadership … and in each case, that is the ca.., we have great leaders, leading these initiatives.
We have the willingness of the state jurisdictions to progress these matters and yet again she’s throwing bombs into areas where indigenous leaders are making great progress.
I feel very bad for those leaders because they worked so hard and she’s dragged the treaty issue into the federal parliament where it does not belong at this stage, one day it will, and that’s a long way off.
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