An Australian lawmaker was dragged away by security after heckling King Charles III during his visit to the country, yelling, “You are not my king!”
Lidia Thorpe, an indigenous Australian independent senator who once called Queen Elizabeth II a colonizer during her swearing-in ceremony in 2022, went after King Charles on Monday inside the Great Hall of the Parliament House in Canberra.
“Give us what you stole from us: our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people,” Thorpe said to Charles.
“This is not your land. This is not your land. You are not my King, you are not our King!” Thorpe is heard yelling during a video of her being escorted away from the area.
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Prior to the outburst, the King gave a speech in which he recognized the First Nations people and their “traditional wisdom,” and offered his respects to the “traditional owners of the lands on which we meet,” The Telegraph reported.
Thorpe’s behavior – which also included her telling the King, “You committed genocide against our people,” and, “F— the colonies” – is now being slammed by fellow lawmakers, the newspaper added.
“To show such utter disrespect to King Charles, who has traveled to Australia, despite ongoing cancer treatment, is disgusting,” Ralph Babet, a United Australia Party senator, was quoted as saying.
“Senator Thorpe has disgraced not only herself and the Australian Parliament, but every Australian man, woman and child,” he reportedly added.
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Ngunnawal elder Aunty Violet Sheridan, who was sitting on stage next to King Charles when the incident unfolded, told The Telegraph that it “frightened the life out of me,” and that she “thought she was disrespectful and out of line.”
“I hope we fix this up before our next generation comes through,” she stated. “Hopefully people see it for what it is: a one-off idiot.”
In 2022, during Thorpe’s swearing-in ceremony inside the same building, she said, “I, sovereign Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful, and I bear true allegiance to the colonizing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” drawing jeers and groans from her colleagues.
