Just after King Charles III finished speaking in the Australian Parliament on Monday, a voice echoed from the back of the chamber. “You are not our king,” cried Indigenous senator and Indigenous rights activist Lydia Thorpe. “Give us back our land. Give us back what you stole from us.”
As security guards removed Thorpe from the chamber, she continued to heckle the king, demanding that Britain make a treaty with Australia’s indigenous peoples and accusing British colonizers of genocide.
“Our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people,” Thorpe, wearing a traditional possum skin cloak, said, raising his fist at Charles as security backed away toward the door. “You destroyed our land.”
When I left the room, I heard Ms Thorpe shouting adjectives about Australia’s British “colonies”. The King watched expressionlessly from the stage and left the reception with his wife, Queen Camilla, a few minutes later.
It was an unpleasant interruption to Prince Charles’ first visit to Australia since becoming king in 2022, and revived long-standing questions about how long the British monarch will reign in Australia. The last time Australians were asked this question in 1999, Australians voted against becoming a republic by 54.8 per cent to 45.2 per cent.
Since then, the republican movement has largely died down, but the death of Australia’s widely respected Queen Elizabeth has sparked hopes among some republicans that the party might rise again. Anti-monarchy activists half-jokingly refer to the king’s visit as a “farewell tour.”
Charles is no stranger to Australia. This is his 17th visit to the country, but his most memorable visit was in 1983 when he visited Australia with his first wife, Princess Diana. She outdid him at every stop, which she later said caused friction between her and her new husband. Although not as famous as Princess Diana or her mother, Charles has fans in the country.
“I have no personal animosity towards Charles,” said Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who led the 1999 campaign to establish a republic. “In fact, there are many people in Australia who admire him, as there are around the world, particularly for his leadership on environmental issues.”
Mr Turnbull said in a telephone interview that the transition from Elizabeth to Charles was still an appropriate time to revisit the issue of republicanism. “If it’s doable and that’s what the people want, then we should make it happen,” he said.
But Mr Turnbull said the party’s efforts were hampered by long-standing disputes over how the head of state is chosen and compulsory voting requirements that would make it difficult to change Australia’s constitution.
Last year, the Labor government was defeated in a referendum that would have created an advisory body in Parliament to give Indigenous Australians a greater voice on issues affecting them. Mr Turnbull said the defeat had left the government “very hurt” and reinforced the need for Republicans to “choose the right moment” for another referendum.
Ms Thorpe was among those who opposed the so-called ‘voice’ referendum, saying it did not do enough to right Australia’s colonial wrongs. She comes from a prominent family of indigenous activists and has long campaigned for indigenous rights and against the British monarchy.
When Thorpe was re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 and was sworn in, she raised her fist in a powerful black salute and referred to the then-Queen as “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Colonizer.” She was instructed to repeat the oath, which she did in an overtly mocking tone.
Buckingham Palace did not respond to Monday’s heckling incident. A palace source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Their Majesties are deeply grateful to the thousands of people who came out to support them and just regret that they did not have the opportunity to stop and speak to each of them individually.” ” he said. One. The warmth and scale of the reception was truly amazing. ”
The Australia visit will be Charles’ most ambitious overseas trip since he was diagnosed with cancer at Palace in February. The King’s itinerary is structured to allow him sufficient time to rest and recuperate. After arriving in Sydney on Friday night, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla took a day off on Saturday and attended a church service on Sunday.
The King is scheduled to travel to Samoa later this week for a federal government summit. There, they may face further backlash from Britain’s colonial legacy. Caribbean leaders are expected to renew their calls for Britain to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade and for damage caused to Caribbean islands by climate change.
