Canberra. An independent Australian senator disrupted a parliamentary reception for King Charles during his visit to the country. The woman raised anti-colonial slogans like ‘You are not my king’, after which the security personnel caught the senator and threw him out. The senator’s comments went viral on social media. In the video the woman can be heard saying that you are not my king! Give us what you have stolen from us.
A matter of great embarrassment for King Charles III was that an indigenous senator said in front of everyone that Australia was not their land. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there is no need for a monarch as the country’s head of state, while the British royal family went to the Australian Parliament on Monday. Indigenous independent senator Lydia Thorpe was kicked out of a parliamentary reception for the royal couple after she shouted that British colonialists had taken Indigenous land and bones.
They shouted that you committed genocide against our people. Give us what you have stolen from us, our bones, our skulls, our children, our people. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty. King Charles spoke quietly to Albanese, while security officers prevented Senator Thorpe from approaching. This is not your land, Thorpe shouted after being thrown out of the hall. You are not my king.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who wants to keep the British monarch as Australia’s monarch, said republic supporters were also honored to attend the reception for Charles and Queen Camilla at Parliament House in the capital Canberra. “People have gotten haircuts, people have polished shoes, ironed suits, and that’s just Republicans,” Dutton quipped.
Australia’s six state government leaders underlined political divisions over the country’s constitutional relationship with Britain by declining an invitation to attend the reception. All six would like to make an Australian citizen the head of Australia. Each of them said they had more important things to do on Monday, but monarchists agreed the royals had been ignored.
Charles began his speech by thanking Aunty Violet Sheridan, an Indigenous elder from Canberra, for the traditional welcome to the King and Queen. Charles said, I also want to say how much I appreciate this morning’s heart-warming Welcome to Country ceremony, which I felt was a great opportunity to thank the traditional owners of the lands where we meet, the Ngunnawal people and all First Nations. Provides an opportunity to pay respect to the people who have loved and cared for this continent for 65,000 years.
“Throughout my life, the First Nations peoples of Australia have given me the great honor of sharing their stories and cultures so generously,” Charles said. I can only say how much such traditional knowledge has shaped and strengthened my own experience.
Charles had become involved in the debate on Australia’s republic months before his visit. The Australian republican movement, which wants Australia to sever its constitutional ties with Britain, wrote to Charles in December last year requesting a meeting in Australia and to plead their cause to the king. Buckingham Palace politely wrote back in March that the king’s meetings would be decided by the Australian government. The meeting with the ARM does not appear in the official itinerary. The letter from Buckingham Palace said, it is for the Australian people to decide whether Australia will become a republic.