Following Greens leader Adam Bandt’s refusal to stand in front of the Australian flag at a press conference because the flag is ‘hurtful’ to Indigenous Australians (why he speaks for them is unclear), Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe’s comments on The Project sparked controversy after she provided the definitive exemplar of how Leftist ideology is dividing Australia.

Some commentators are shocked by Senator Thorpe’s assertion that:

‘The flag does not represent me or my people. It represents the colonisation of these lands and it has no permission to be here. There has been no consent [from Indigenous people].’

Setting aside the fact that many Indigenous people have no issue with the Australian flag, including the recently elected Senator for the Northern Territory Jacinta Price, Senator Thorpe’s comments shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who’s been paying attention to Australian politics, or Australian culture, in recent years. In fact, the only shocking aspect of her words was how honest they were about the Greens’ beliefs.

For example, when host Waleed Aly asked whether Senator Thorpe’s opinion about the flag, that ‘it has no permission to be here’ applies to the Australian Parliament itself, she replied:

‘Absolutely! That’s why I’m there. I’m there to infiltrate… I entered into the colonial project because I wanted to contribute to renewing this nation, and renewing this nation means that everybody in this country should know whose land they’re on.’

This is a refreshingly honest answer. Senator Thorpe has publicly admitted that she views the Australian parliament, and therefore our system of government, as illegitimate, and that she serves in parliament to undermine our political system, inherited from our British forebears. Essentially, she has admitted that she hates this country and its colonial spirit, with all its individualism, patriotism, religion, education, enlightenment philosophy, and everything that makes a society noble and decent. She doesn’t want to improve Australian society, she wants to tear it down and replace it with… something. The Marxist utopian fantasy remains ever murky.

Waleed, to his credit, proceeded to ask the Senator why she took an oath to the Queen and the ‘colonial project’ if she is opposed to them. Her response was, again, refreshingly honest:

‘I swore allegiance to the colonising Queen, but I had to do that as part of getting into the senate and getting the job, right?’

Yes, Senator Thorpe, that’s right. The men who drafted the Australian Constitution believed that only people who were loyal to the British monarch and sought to uphold the British system of government were fit to serve as elected representatives in this nation. Kudos to the Senator for admitting the truth – that she disingenuously pledged loyalty to the ‘colonial project’ because she believes it is illegitimate and wishes to subvert it. Conservatives who talk about the Long March through the Institutions are often called conspiracy theorists, but Senator Thorpe has openly and publicly admitted to participating in it. For that, we can be grateful.

Senator Thorpe is part of a long tradition of Leftist radicals seeking to topple Western civilisation and re-shape it in their own image, a tradition that goes back to the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, who in his Prison Notebooks famously wrote:

‘In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.’

Gramsci was reflecting on why Marx’s communist revolution had failed to materialise and believed that, to overcome traditional Western hegemony, Marxists had to organise themselves and take over Western institutions from within. This has been occurring for decades, and too many people are only just waking up to this fact at the point when the Long March is just about complete.

Finally, Waleed mentioned Derryn Hinch’s point about Adam Bandt’s unpatriotic display – that such anti-flag shenanigans would only further divide Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, a point that is undoubtedly true. Thorpe’s reply?

‘You’re comparing a middle-aged, white privileged guy to a grassroots black Senator who comes from front-line activist space.’

Checkmate, Mr. Hinch. Your point is invalid because of your age, race, and sex. The Greens don’t go for that old-fashioned, ignorant notion of judging someone not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr hoped for his children, but by external appearance and simplistic group-identity classifications that determine your place on the spectrum of oppression.

Furthermore, the Senator admits that she is from ‘activist space’. That’s all the Greens are – whiny activists. They’re not real politicians, or working people, or people who want to contribute in any meaningful sense to society, they’re hateful revolutionaries who won’t stop until everyone is as miserable as they are.

Senator Thorpe is the embodiment of Leftism (something she would likely take as a compliment) – a perpetual victim motivated by a desire to tear down rather than build up, who views human beings, not as individuals capable of independent thought and free will, and therefore able to overcome adversity through the fostering of virtue, but as mere members of groups that must be passively controlled by anointed elites. Where she departs from other Leftist politicians is her remarkable honesty about the socialist infiltration agenda. She’s telling the truth about the Long March, whereas most Leftists know that they can’t completely admit that, lest they reveal how dangerous and deluded they are.

The Australian flag ought to be a symbol of unity, encompassing all Australians regardless of skin colour, religious views, or any other distinction, but the Greens don’t view themselves as Australians, they believe they (and the Indigenous people they claim to speak for) are outside of the ‘colonial project’. They view themselves not as members of the society the flag represents but as operatives from a foreign faction infiltrating and subverting a powerful enemy from within.

Perhaps the Long March has been so successful in Australia that Senator Thorpe can get away with being honest. Perhaps there’s no longer any need for the pretense about loving Australia but wanting to see ‘progress’, the Greens can now simply admit they hate this country. Gramsci’s Long March is so thoroughly realised that there is no longer the need to be deceitful.

Hopefully, the hostility towards the ‘colonial project’ that is Australia that the Greens have recently displayed will expose who they really are. How contemporary Australians respond to that is another question. If only every politician were as honest as Lidia Thorpe.

Get 10 issues for just $10

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $10.

SUBSCRIBE 10 issues for $10 REGISTER 3 articles a month

Already a subscriber? Log in