“You are not my king”: moment when King Charles is heckled by an Australian politician
Lidia Thorpe is no stranger to controversy and this isn't the first time she has expressed her views on the British monarchy.
The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman has been a Victoria senator since 2020, the first Indigenous senator from that state.
Before that, she had a history of Indigenous activism – she also worked as chair of Naidoc (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) for Victoria, an organization that works to recognize and teach Australians First Nations cultures and their stories.
In 2022, while taking the oath of office in Parliament after a re-election, she called the late queen a colonizer.
“I am Sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, I do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the colonizer, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” she said during her swearing-in.
After criticism from other senators, she then repeated the oath as printed.
So Monday's incident wouldn't have been that surprising to anyone who follows Australian politics. Lidia Thorpe made her views clear: British colonization saw large numbers of Aboriginal people massacred and the scars of colonization are still very apparent to many of Australia's First Nations people.
Whether or not you agree with Lidia Thorpe's approach – and some prominent Indigenous leaders have made it clear they do not – the fact is that there are deep disparities between First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians on indicators such as education. , health and life expectancy.
Last year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a young indigenous person was more likely to go to prison than to university, which the statistics bear out, the ABC showed.
And between 2020 and 2022, the life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was estimated to be eight years shorter than that of non-Indigenous Australians.
“I wanted to send a clear message to the King of England: he is not the king of this country, he is not my king, he is not sovereign,” Thorpe told the BBC after being expelled from the Great Hall after heckling. “To be sovereign, one must be from this land. He is not from this country.
She continued.
“How can he stand here and say he is the king of our country – he has stolen so much wealth from our people and our land and he must return it. And he needs to start a conversation for a peace treaty in this country,” she said.
“We can lead this, we can do this – we can be a better country, but we cannot bow down to the colonizer whose ancestors he spoke of are responsible for mass murder, mass genocide.”
Reuters
Lidia Thorpe was escorted away by security after heckling King Charles
One of Lidia Thorpe's biggest grievances is the fact that Australia is the only Commonwealth country to have never signed a treaty with its indigenous people. She pushed for this to be a priority.
For her, last year's referendum on a vote in Parliament – which would have recognized First Nations people in the constitution and allowed them to form a body to advise Parliament – was a distraction from that goal.
Australians voted overwhelmingly against the proposal and she was among a minority of First Nations people who also voted no.
She told the BBC at the time that the aim of The Voice was to “assimilate us into the colonial constitution to make us nice little indigenous Australians who will continue to be oppressed by the colonizer”.
But she was in the minority among First Nations members to do so. Areas with a high proportion of indigenous Australians voted overwhelmingly yes, but Aboriginal people make up almost 4% of the Australian population. Nationally, just over 60% of Australian voters voted against it.
Not all Aboriginal leaders seem as troubled by royal visits as Lidia Thorpe.
Allira Davis, co-chair of the Uluru Youth Dialogue, said she respected the late queen, even describing her as “beautiful”.
What about King Charles' current visit?
“I don’t think it’s that important. We are our own country,” Allira Davis told the BBC, before Lidia Thorpe heckled him in Canberra.
“Understanding the history of what happened in this country is really very essential. We are no longer just a white country. We are a very brown country. We are a very multicultural country.
“So I’m all for creating a republic, but we have to recognize our First Nations people.”
So while Lidia Thorpe reflects a view shared by many about the damage caused – and continues to cause – colonization, not everyone agrees with her approach.
Local media reported that her former colleagues had difficulty working with her.
But Lidia Thorpe – who is now independent after leaving the Greens due to the party's support for a yes vote in the referendum – is unlikely to change course. She believes that the king must play a greater role in remedying the ills of the past.
