"You are not my King": Lidia Thorpe interrupts Charles' Parliament House visit
Senator Lidia Thorpe has caused a stir in Parliament House as she launched into a tirade against King Charles during his welcome to Canberra.
The monarch had just finished his speech and was returning to his seat after shaking hands with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when Thorpe started yelling from the back of the room.
“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,” Thorpe said during her outburst on Monday.
“We want a treaty in this country. This is not your land. You are not my King, you are not our King. F*** the colony.”
Security quickly swarmed around Thorpe and escorted her from the Great Hall, where a reception for political and community leaders was being held.
The King continued to chat with Albanese during the disruption, which lasted about one minute.
The outburst has sparked calls for Thorpe to resign, with the Australian Monarchist League describing her behaviour as a “childish demonstration”.
“Senator Thorpe should step down with immediate effect,” league national chair Philip Benwell said.
“The Australian Monarchist League unequivocally condemns the ill-considered behaviour of this isolated senator."
“Her childish demonstration has done nothing to diminish the gratitude and pride that millions of Australians have for our country, its history, its peoples and its sound system of governance. In fact, it has likely only strengthened these feelings."
“Should she not resign, the league expects Senator Thorpe will be referred to the President of the Senate and that her misconduct will be addressed in accordance with what is the obvious and prevailing public sentiment.”
In a statement released on Monday afternoon, Thorpe said her aim was to “hand King Charles a notice of complicity in the genocide of the First Peoples of this county”.
“The visit by the so-called King should be an occasion of truth-telling about the true history of this country,” Thorpe said. “The colonial state has been built on the continuing genocide on First Peoples.”
“Today I was silenced and removed from the parliamentary reception when pointing out that the Crown stole from First Peoples."
“The British Crown committed heinous crimes against the First Peoples of this country. These crimes include war crimes, crimes against humanity and failure to prevent genocide. There has been no justice for these crimes. The Crown must be held accountable.”
Following the statement, Thorpe was forced to apologise to her online followers for a different display of anti-royalism, as an artwork of the King being beheaded was posted to her Instagram.
The controversial MP said that the image was uploaded “without her knowledge” and she has now “deleted it”.
Writing on X she said, “Earlier tonight, without my knowledge, one of my staff shared an image to my Instagram stories created by another account."
“I deleted it as soon as I saw. I would not intentionally share anything that could be seen to encourage violence against anyone. That’s not what I’m about.”
Image credits: LUKAS COCH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Editorial