Do we like Lidia Thorpe?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A voting record that backs trans people, the climate and First Nations justice, held back by a run of Senate blow-ups and a bikie-relationship story that changed.
Thorpe went into the Senate for Victoria in 2020 as a Greens senator, then walked out in February 2023 to sit as an independent. She said she was committed to the Blak sovereignty movement and told critics who wanted her gone “I am here for a reason.” Her whole politics is that sovereignty was never ceded, and she'll take on any party, Greens included, to say so.
The bikie saga is the messiest chapter. The ABC reported in 2022 that she had dated a former Rebels boss while sitting on a committee with access to confidential information on gangs. A Senate privileges committee found in March 2023 that she should have disclosed it but cleared her of contempt. Days later she told the Senate she'd had no relationship with the man, which sat awkwardly against her own earlier submission that they had briefly dated.
Then there's the temper. In 2021 she made a crude jibe at a Liberal senator and apologised unreservedly. In 2023 she told the Senate under parliamentary privilege that Liberal senator David Van had sexually assaulted her; Van rejected the allegation and said it was untrue, and she withdrew the remark to comply with Senate rules. In 2024 she called Pauline Hanson a “convicted racist” on TV, and Hanson's lawyers said no such conviction existed. Nine withdrew the claim.
On the harm test she's a clear pass. In 2023 she tried to confront the anti-trans campaigner Posie Parker's Canberra rally, and police knocked her to the ground. They Vote For You has her almost always voting for gender-affirming care for trans young people and generally for trans rights, plus a carbon price, the Paris agreement and against nuclear and new coal. Her October 2025 “burn down Parliament House” line, said at a Gaza rally, drew an AFP look, and she called it a metaphor. The AFP reportedly cleared her in February 2026.
Her future is open. She once said she'd retire in 2028, then in 2025 said she'd run again to try to win the seat back and hand it to another Blak Sovereign Movement member. So expect more noise, and more fights with Hanson, for a while yet.
So would we support her? Mostly yes. What she stands for lines up with everything this page cares about, and nothing harmful turned up in her words, votes or the company she keeps. The knock is how she does it: a crude insult, a claim she had to withdraw and a bikie story that didn't hold. That's a mixed bag on nice, not a villain.