On the second official day of his tour of Australia, King Charles III and Queen Camilla have been confronted by Senator Lidia Thorpe while in Canberra.
The Indigenous senator took the monarch to task in Canberra’s Great Hall on Monday afternoon during the King’s royal address to to Parliament, by shouting various anti-colonialist and anti-royal sentiments to the head of the British Royal Family.
Thorpe began yelling at the royal figure about the Crown’s historical role in the settlement of Australia, and how it destroyed the First Nations’ way of life.
Among shouting “fuck the colony” and “not my king”, Thorpe called on the King to return the land to its original custodians.
“Give us our land back that you stole from us,” she shouted.
“You committed genocide against our people.
“Our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You destroyed our land.”
Thorpe also called for a Treaty to be made: “Give us a Treaty. We want a Treaty in this country.”
She was promptly escorted off the premises.
The entire interruption was filmed and uploaded to X (formerly Twitter) by journalist Kate Mansey.
King Charles protester Lidia Thorpe, a Victoria Senator interrupts the great hall after speech pic.twitter.com/d02hoKW1rh
— Kate Mansey (@KateMansey) October 21, 2024
In it, the awkward reaction from onlookers can be seen, as security guards make a beeline to remove Senator Thorpe from the building.
The King and Queen did not react to the public confrontation, and continued the event once the Victorian senator had left.
Following her removal from the building, the senator explained she was attempting to give the King a “notice of complicity in the genocide of the First Peoples”.
“Krauatungalung Elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe issued this notice to the International Criminal Court on October 13 this year, requesting King Charles be charged and prosecuted for genocide,” she said.
“The visit by the so-called King should be an occasion of truth-telling about the true history of this country. The colonial state has been built on the continuing genocide on First Peoples.
“Today I was silenced and removed from the parliamentary reception when pointing out that the Crown stole from First Peoples.”
In response to the stunt, advocates for First Nations peoples applauded Lidia Thorpe for her bravery.
“She is very much representing the strong feeling of indigenous Australians,” wrote one advocate online.
As usual, everything Lidia Thorpe said is true and the only shameful thing about it is that she was the only one there saying it.
— Elias Greig (@elias_greig) October 21, 2024
Enormously satisfying the way Lidia Thorpe makes the shittest people insanely mad.
— the xdenburg (@jonkudelka) October 21, 2024
However, other people were unimpressed by the public confrontation, with some saying that it was “embarassing”.
Former PM Tony Abbott (who knighted Charles’ dad), referred to the stunt as “unfortunate political exhibitionism”.
What Lidia Thorpe did was show appalling manners towards a guest in this country . She needs a better way to make her point.
— Neil Mitchell (@3AWNeilMitchell) October 21, 2024
This is far from the first time that Thorpe has expressed her anti-monarchist views. The senator made headlines when in 2022 during her oath of allegiance she called Queen Elizabeth II a coloniser.
“I sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” said Thorpe, while being sworn in to the Senate.
She was later forced to repeat the oath as instructed, but kept her fist raised.
Lead Image: Getty
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