‘We’re the experts in our own lives’: Victoria’s First Nations treaty body is holding its first elections

Gellung Warl candidates, Lidia Thorpe’s son among them, are hoping to bring their lived experience to ‘a new era’ of politics in the state Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast After more than two decades in the construction industry, Andrew Thorpe has decided to down tools and take a shot at politics. But it is not the traditional political system that has governed Australia since 1901. Thorpe is running for a seat in a “new era” of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, after Australia’s first and only treaty was signed between a state government and traditional owners in November. It’s a familiar world for Thorpe: his mother, the independent senator Lidia Thorpe, and uncle Robbie Thorpe, have been fighting and campaigning for Aboriginal rights for decades. The Gunnai and Gunditjmara man tells Guardian Australia it was his time to “step up and be a part of it”. “Last Friday, I quit my job in construction, and I’m full on [campaigning],” he says. “Either if I get into the treaty – I want to be able to make changes that are beneficial for mob – or if I don’t get into the treaty, I’m still gonna be working directly with wha