Lidia Thorpe

Fighter for human rights and the environment.

Lidia is a Gunai Gunditjmara woman. She is a politician, a business woman and an activist. She was born into a family of strong Aboriginal women who fought for their rights. “I started protesting at 5 years old,” she said.

Lidia grew up in public housing in Collingwood in 1973. The public housing flats were a safe place for her and her family. At the time, Lidia remembers that there was still a lot of violence from the police against Aboriginal people in her community. 

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When Lidia was 14 years old, she left school. At 17, she had her first child. She raised the child on her own in her public housing flat. It was hard work! She went on to have two more children.

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Lidia had many jobs and was in many Aboriginal groups that helped the community. She had her own business managing events, but the business soon closed. It closed because of domestic violence and Lidia lost all her money. 

But she never gave up and she never stopped fighting for Indigenous Australians rights. Today, Indigenous Australians have many problems – they are not equal in health, schooling, work, and many are poor and die earlier. Indigenous Australians are 3% of the population but they are 27% of all Australian prisoners. 

She said, “I never thought I would be a politician, it just happened.” In 2017, Lidia got into the Victorian Government. She was the first Aboriginal woman to enter the Victorian Government. “I was proud, but I was sad too. We need more women and Indigenous people making decisions in government.”

In 2020, Lidia was a politician for Victoria in the Australian government. On her first day in the government, Lidia wore a possum skin coat and had a stick with 441 lines on it. Each line was an Indigenous person who died in jail. 

Today, Lidia is fighting for a treaty – an agreement between the government and Indigenous Australians. In a treaty, you write down Indigenous Australian’s History and how they were in Australia first. Then it writes down how we can work together to make everyone equal. She will not stop until Indigenous Australians have their rights. 

Leaders of two countries signing a treaty.