As soon as Lidia Thorpe RSVP’d to the royal reception at Parliament House, it would have been clear to those in charge of protocol that there was probably going to be a protest.
Perhaps this was why the king and queen and their hosts entered the Great Hall from a door behind the stage and not straight ahead from the foyer, down the centre aisle and right past where Thorpe, dressed in a possum-skin cloak, had taken up an early position at the front of a group of waiting MPs.
But making an operational switch was never going to avoid the confrontation altogether, any more than the visit itself can fully erase the sense that Australia’s ties to the monarchy symbolise the nation’s past much more than its future.
“You are not our king, you are not sovereign,” Thorpe shouted as she approached the stage before security officials intervened.
“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us - our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist. This is not your land. This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king.”
As she left the room, she shouted “fuck the colony”.
Thorpe’s outburst will probably increase sympathy for the royals among Australians who are ambivalent about the monarchy but believe in at least being polite to guests. From the overwhelming majority of those who have gathered in the streets and in the parliament to see them passing by, the welcome has been warm and genuine, and republican banners few.
That particular elephant did also manage to find its way into the reception hall among the guests sipping champagne and trying to capture a sly selfie, albeit less dramatically than the one called Indigenous sovereignty.
“You have shown great respect for Australians, even during times when we have debated the future of our own constitutional arrangements and the nature of our relationship with the crown,” Anthony Albanese told the king, adding an oblique signpost to Australia’s unfinished business. “Nothing stands still.”
Only Peter Dutton was game to tackle the nation’s seemingly increasingly tepid breakaway inclinations head on, and then only as fodder for a joke in the presence of a monarch who clearly doesn’t mind one.
“We hope your spirits have been lifted by the response that you’ve received so far, yesterday in Sydney, and today at the War Memorial and indeed here in this hall in this eclectic gathering,” Dutton told the king, from the podium.
“People have had haircuts, people have shined shoes, suits have been pressed. And that’s just the republicans.”
Australia’s constitutional future didn’t feature in King Charles’s remarks even obliquely – a fair indication that he recognises it has all gone a bit off the boil.
Nevertheless, he did lean in to a couple of other issues that have caused domestic political pain in the Antipodes. He acknowledged the “unmistakeable signs of climate change” and the need to confront and not ignore them, praising Australia for “tracking the path towards a better, safer future”.
And in the minutes before Thorpe made her protest, he also acknowledged what he described as the nation’s “long and sometimes difficult journey towards reconciliation”. In paying respect to the knowledge of the First Peoples, he wove the two issues together.
“It is in all our interests to be good stewards of the world and good ancestors to those who come after us,” he said. “Because we are all connected, both with the global community and with all that sustains life. That is the timeless wisdom of Indigenous people throughout the entire world.”
The “horrors of war, death and needless destruction” prompted the king to also declare that “this moment in our history requires both ancient and new thinking”.
That’s certainly the challenge for a monarch dropping in to a faraway, slightly ambivalent corner of his empire, armed with nostalgia, empathy and political optimism as the ties to bind it in place.
Lidia Thorpe burst that warm bubble on Monday, marching towards the stage and yelling for a treaty, as Albanese and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, leaned over to whisper in nearby respective royal ears.
If Thorpe’s protest does nothing else, it serves to remind that while tradition no longer goes unchallenged in this country, sorting out our identity has a long way to go and will be a lot more uncomfortable than one loud, angry voice interrupting a party.
Karen Middleton is Guardian Australia’s political editor
This story was updated on 22 October 2024 to add what Lidia Thorpe said during her protest
