An Australian senator who accused King Charles of committing ‘genocide’ against her nation’s indigenous people during a confrontation in parliament has shared a picture of him with his head cut off.
Lidia Thorpe, who campaigns on First Nations issues, disrupted Charles’s welcome to the capital Canberra with her outburst which overshadowed a speech by the King highlighting his debt to the descendants of Australia’s first inhabitants.
Thorpe, who was dressed in a traditional long possum skin coat, marched across the lobby and told the King ‘You committed geocide 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 lives. Give us a treaty, we need a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist.’
As she was escorted from the chamber by security, she could be heard saying ‘F*** the colony’.
The senator, who refused to swear an oath to the Queen upon being elected, was one of around 20 people protesting the King’s arrival as he laid a wreath at a war memorial in Canberra earlier in the day.
She was among a number of indigenous voices to protest the King’s arrival in what has been dubbed a ‘farewell tour’ by Australian Republicans.
Following the confrontation, she reposted a cartoon of Charles with his head cut off on her Instagram story, created by Matt Chun, co-editor of anti-imperialist publication The Sunday Paper.
Speaking to Sky’s Kay Burley following the incident, Ms Thorpe said she ‘wasn’t fussed’ if some people think she abused her senatorial power, as she has ‘the support of Aboriginal people around this country’.
‘We are the real sovereigns in this country,’ she said. ‘The King lives in your country, he’s from your country. He can’t be our King.’
She added: ‘We have our bones and our skulls still in his family’s possession. We want that back. We want our land back.
‘And we want your King to take some leadership and sit at the table and discuss a treaty with us.’
When asked why she referred to the King as ‘genocidal’, the senator said: ‘there are thousands of massacre sites in this country from invasion and someone needs to answer for that. He is the successor, then he needs to answer’.
Upon arrival, Charles and Camilla were greeted by Aunty Serena Williams from the Ngunnawal people, who urged the King to apologise for colonial atrocities.
She told reporters: ‘We all have roles and responsibilities, and I have roles and responsibilities to my people. And I think an apology would be beautiful.’
When pressed on whether the King should personally say sorry, she said: ‘Yes. Because we have to acknowledge our past.’
Charles acknowledged the remarks during his speech in parliament and said he ‘offered to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet’, but stopped short of formally apologising.
Aunty Violet Sheridan, another senior Ngunnawal Elder who formally welcomed Charles and Camilla to her ancestral lands when they entered Parliament House, said the senator did not speak for her.
She said: ‘We are all so disappointed by it. To have that in the Great Hall – disgusting. I am so upset about her. He has waited so long to be king, he has rehearsed for it all his life.
‘He is our king, our sovereign and he has got cancer.’
Who is Lidia Thorpe?
Ms Thorpe was elected in 2017 and sits as an independent in the upper house of the Australian parliament.
After refusing to swear allegiance to the Queen upon being elected, she was later compelled to repeat the oath of allegiance in 2022 after initially describing the late monarch as a ‘coloniser’.
In a statement ahead of the King’s visit, she said: ‘As First Peoples, we never ceded our Sovereignty over this land. The Crown invaded this country, has not sought treaty with First Peoples, and committed a Genocide of our people. King Charles is not the legitimate Sovereign of these lands.
‘Any move towards a republic must not continue this injustice. Treaty must play a central role in establishing an independent nation. A republic without a Treaty must not happen.’
In an interview with Australian media, she also referred to the King as a ‘violent invader’ who must bare responsibility for the crimes comitted by the British empire.
‘I recognise him as an invader, a violent invader,’ said Ms Thorpe. ‘Yes he wasn’t personally responsible but he certainly relishes in the wealth that has been created on the backs of slavery, on the backs of massacres and murders, and of stolen children.’
She also said indigenous people deserve reperations from the monarchy for the atrocities inflicted on them.
The visit to Parliament House came on the fourth day of the King and Queen’s tour, which has seen a number of Australian officials avoid meetings with the royals.
A number of low-level protests have marred their visit so far, including a banner with the word ‘decolonise’ which was displayed at an event in Sydney.
Prime minister Albanese has a long-held aim of holding a referendum on breaking ties with the British monarchy and his country becoming a republic.
But the plans were put on hold after Australians overwhelmingly rejected a plan to give greater political rights to Indigenous people in a referendum held last year.
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