Aboriginal senator Lidia Thorpe challenged King Charles III on Monday during his visit to the Australian Parliament, shouting anti-colonial slogans.
Aboriginal senator Lidia Thorpe challenged King Charles III on Monday during his visit to the Australian Parliament, shouting anti-colonial slogans.
“Give us back our lands, give us back what you stole from us!” shouted the parliamentarian in a diatribe lasting about a minute, after a speech by the 75-year-old king to the country’s elected officials and officials. .
The independent senator, wearing a fur cape, denounced what she called the genocide of indigenous Australians during the era of European colonization of Australia.
Colony for a century
Australia was a British colony for more than a century, during which thousands of Aboriginal Australians were killed and entire communities displaced.
The country gained de facto independence in 1901, but never became a full republic. King Charles remains head of state.
Charles III is on a nine-day visit to Australia and Samoa, his first major foreign tour since he was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.
Political highlights
Lidia Thorpe is known for her political coups and her fierce opposition to the monarchy. When she was sworn in in 2022, she raised her right fist as she reluctantly vowed to serve Queen Elizabeth II, Australia’s then head of state.
“I solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the colonizer Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” she said before being reprimanded.
“Senator Thorpe, you must recite the oath as it is printed,” House Speaker Sue Lines observed at the time.
Australia rejected by referendum in 1999 a change of Constitution to become a Republic. No reform in this sense is any longer on the agenda.
In 2023, Australians rejected in another referendum measures to recognize Indigenous Australians in the Constitution and create an Indigenous Consultative Assembly.
