Australian politician, Senator Lidia Thorpe heckles King Charles III during the ceremonial welcome and Parliamentary reception at the Australian Parliament House on October 21, 2024, in Canberra, Australia. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Australia’s Senate on Monday (November 18, 2024) censured an Indigenous woman parliamentarian over her protest against King Charles during his visit to the parliament last month when she accused the British monarch of genocide.

Independent senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe shouted that she did not accept Charles’ sovereignty over Australia moments after he delivered a speech in which he paid his “respects to the traditional owners of the lands”.

Both the ruling Labor party and the opposition coalition supported the censure motion, which will not have any legal or constitutional consequences and is only considered a symbolic move by lawmakers when they disagree on a member’s conduct.

Ms. Thorpe’s protest was disruptive and she did not respect the democratic institutions, the motion said.

The British monarch is Australia’s head of state.

‘I’ll do it again’

Ms. Thorpe, a DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman, called the members who supported the motion “hypocrites” and said the censure process was a ploy to divert attention away from the real issues affecting Australia.

“I’ll do it again, and I’ll do it every time,” Ms. Thorpe shouted in parliament when Simon Birmingham, the opposition leader in the Senate, was making his comments on the motion.

“They want me to kneel, to be silent, to disappear, but let me be clear… my loyalty lies with my people, with justice, not with a government or a crown that has systematically worked to erase us,” Ms. Thorpe said.

Ms. Thorpe, who has disrupted previous events protesting over Britain’s colonisation of Australia, had to retake her oath of office in 2022 after she tweaked it to label Queen Elizabeth a coloniser. She was told to recite the affirmation — a form of parliamentary oath that omits a reference to God — as written.

Australia has struggled for decades to reconcile with its Indigenous citizens, who make up 3.8% of the country’s 27 million population, and are, by most socio-economic measures, the most disadvantaged people in the country.

Their ancestors arrived on the continent some 50,000 years before British colonists yet were marginalised during colonial rule and are not mentioned in Australia’s 123-year-old constitution.

The Senate also passed a censure motion against United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet for offensive comments on social media platform X after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.

Australia’s Governor-General Sam Mostyn, center, talks to Britain’s King Charles III, 2nd from left, and Queen Camilla, 2nd from right, during a tree planting ceremony at Government House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

An Indigenous senator told King Charles III that Australia is not his land and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the monarch is not needed as the country’s Head of State as the British royal visited Australia’s parliament on Monday (October 21, 2024).

Indigenous independent Senator Lidia Thorpe was escorted out of a parliamentary reception for the royal couple after shouting that British colonisers have taken Indigenous land and bones.

“You committed genocide against our people,” she shouted. “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.”

King Charles spoke quietly with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese while security officials stopped Senator Thorpe from approaching.

“This is not your land. You are not my king,” Ms. Thorpe yelled as she was ushered from the hall.

Mr. Albanese, who wants the country to become a republic with an Australian Head of State, also told the King it was time for his role to end.

“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,” Mr. Albanese said. But, he said, “nothing stands still”.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who wants to keep the British king as Australia’s monarch, noted that even supporters of a republic were honoured to attend a reception for King Charles and Queen Camilla at Parliament House in the capital Canberra.

“People have had haircuts, people have shined shoes, suits have been pressed and that’s just the republicans,” Mr. Dutton quipped.

Australia’s six state government leaders underscored the political divide on the country’s constitutional relationship with Britain by declining invitations to attend the reception. All six would prefer an Australian citizen was Australia’s Head of State.

They each said they had more pressing engagements on Monday, but monarchists agreed the royals had been snubbed.

King Charles used the start of his speech to thank Canberra Indigenous elder Auntie Violet Sheridan for her traditional welcome to the king and queen.

“Let me also say how deeply I appreciated this morning’s moving Welcome to Country ceremony, which offers me the opportunity to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet, the Ngunnawal people, and all First Nations peoples who have loved and cared for this continent for 65,000 years,” King Charles said.

“Throughout my life, Australia’s First Nations peoples have done me the great honour of sharing so generously their stories and cultures. I can only say how much my own experience has been shaped and strengthened by such traditional wisdom,” King Charles added.

Australians decided in a referendum in 1999 to retain Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State. That result is widely regarded to have been the consequence of disagreement about how a president would be chosen rather than majority support for a monarch.

MR. Albanese has ruled out holding another referendum on the subject during his current three-year term in government. But it is a possibility if his centre-left Labour Party is re-elected at elections due by May next year.

King Charles was drawn into Australia’s republic debate months before his visit.

The Australian Republic Movement, which wants Australia to sever its constitutional ties with Britain, wrote to King Charles in December last year requesting a meeting in Australia and for the king to advocate their cause.

Buckingham Palace politely wrote back in March to say the king’s meetings would be decided upon by the Australian government. A meeting with the ARM does not appear on the official itinerary.

“Whether Australia becomes a republic is … a matter for the Australian public to decide,” the Buckingham Palace letter said.

Earlier Monday, King Charles and Queen Camilla laid wreaths at the Australian War Memorial then shook hands with well-wishers on the second full day of their visit.

The memorial estimated 4,000 people had turned out to see the couple.

King Charles, 75, is being treated for cancer, which has led to a scaled-down itinerary. It is King Charles’ 17th trip to Australia and the first since he became King in 2022. It is the first visit to Australia by a reigning British monarch since his late mother Queen Elizabeth II travelled to the distant nation in 2011.

King Charles and Queen Camilla rested the day after their arrival late Friday before making their first public appearance of the trip at a church service in Sydney on Sunday. They then flew to Canberra where they visited the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier and a reception at Parliament House.

Before leaving the war memorial, they stopped to greet hundreds of people who gathered under clear skies flying Australian flags. The temperature was forecast to reach a mild high of 24° Celsius (75° Fahrenheit).

On Wednesday, King Charles will travel to Samoa, where he will open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.