On the second day of his official visit to Australia, King Charles was shouted at by an independent senator, “You are not my king” after delivering a speech in Australia’s Parliament House.
Lidia Thorpe, an Aboriginal woman, shouted for about a minute at the ceremony in the capital, Canberra, before being escorted away by security.
The king had just left the dais to join Queen Camilla, who was seated on the stage, when Thorpe came forward from the back of the assembly and began shouting.
After leveling accusations of genocide against “our people”, she can be heard shouting: “This is not your land, you are not my king.”
U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyThere was no mention of the incident at the end of the ceremony, and the royal couple later met hundreds of people waiting outside to greet them.
Australia is a Commonwealth country, with the King serving as the head of state.
Thorpe is an independent senator from Victoria and has long advocated treaties between the Australian government and its Aboriginal people.
Australia is the only former British colony that has not done so, with many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples stressing they never ceded sovereignty or land to the British crown.
Thorpe later told the BBC she wanted to send a “clear message” to the king.
“To be sovereign, you have to belong to the land,” she said. “He’s not from this land.”
She said the king needed to instruct Parliament to discuss a peace treaty with First Nations.
“We can lead this, we can do this, we can be a better country – but we can’t bow down to the colonizers, whose ancestors he was talking about there for mass murder and mass racial Responsible for extinction.
Wearing a traditional possum skin cloak, Thorpe described the late Queen Elizabeth II as a “colonizer” when he was sworn in as a senator in 2022.
ReutersDespite the protests, many were delighted to see the royals and people lined up outside Parliament House throughout the morning in Canberra’s harsh sunshine, waving Australian flags.
Jamie Karpas, 20, said she was unaware of the royal couple’s visit on Monday, adding: “As someone who last met Harry and Meghan, I’m very excited. I think the royal family They are part of Australian culture. They are an important part of our lives.
Meanwhile, CJ Adams, an American-Australian student at the Australian National University, said: “He was the head of state of the British Empire and yes, you have to draw on the experiences you can gain while in Canberra.”
A small number of dissidents also gathered on the lawn in front of the Capitol.
A royal visit to Canberra was always going to touch on Australia’s history with Aboriginal people, but Thorpe’s intervention means the king and queen are confronting it more directly than originally planned.
The King and Queen arrived in Canberra earlier in the day and were welcomed by a procession of politicians, schoolchildren and Aboriginal representative Ngunnaval Auntie Williams.
They were given a traditional welcome into the halls of Parliament House in Canberra to the sound of a didgeridoo.
King spoke of Aboriginal communities and what he learned from them, saying his own experiences were “shaped and strengthened by this traditional wisdom”.
“On my many visits to Australia, I have witnessed firsthand the courage and hope that have guided this country on its long and sometimes difficult journey toward reconciliation,” he said.
But as he sat down, Thorpe’s shouts of protest filled the hall.
Buckingham Palace made no official comment on Thorpe’s protest, instead focusing on the crowds of people traveling to Canberra to visit the king and queen.
A royal source said the royal couple were deeply moved by the thousands of people who turned out to support them.
Australia has debated for decades whether to shed its monarchy and become a republic. In 1999 the issue was put to the public in a referendum – the only way to change the country’s constitution – but was soundly defeated.
Polls show support for the movement has grown since then, and the country’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, a longtime Republican, shook hands with the king before the senators intervened.
However, following the failure of a referendum on indigenous recognition last year, Albanese’s government has ruled out a second vote on the issue anytime soon.
The visit comes as King Charles undergoes cancer treatment and is his first to Australia since his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Due to his health, this visit will be shorter than previous royal tours.
Earlier in the day, the King had a relaxing moment petting an alpaca wearing a small crown when he stopped to talk to the public after visiting Canberra’s War Memorial.
The royal couple also planted trees at Government House before the king, a long-time environmentalist, visited the National Bushfire Behavior Research Laboratory.
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