Australian senator Lidia Thorpe, who has aboriginal heritage, heckled King Charles III in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra on Oct. 21. Bursting through of a crowd of lawmakers, she shouted "You committed genocide against our people, give us our land back! Give us what you stole from us! You are not our King!"

The speech lasted over a minute as King Charles and Queen Camilla watched on, stunned and silent. "You are not our king. You are not sovereign," Thorpe shouted. "You committed genocide against our people. Give us what you stole from us - our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist. This is not your land. This is not your land. You are not my king. F—ck the colony."

Demanding the King apologize for British atrocities in Australia, she was physically removed from the building. The first Aboriginal senator from the state of Victoria, Thorpe wore a traditional possum skin coat, a nod to the heritage she spoke up for. She has a history of Indigenous activism and called the late Queen a colonizer while being sworn into parliament after re-election in 2022.

Charles had just concluded a speech reminiscing on previous visits to Australia and highlighting Australia's vulnerability to climate change. He had chosen to put a pause on his current cancer treatments in order to make the six-day trip happen, the first Australian visit by a reigning monarch in more than a decade.

Thorpe shared that one of her grievances is the fact that Australia is the only Commonwealth nation that has never signed a treaty with its Indigenous people. "I wanted to send a clear message to the King of England that he's not the King of this country, he's not my king, he's not sovereign," Thorpe told BBC after the exchange. "To be sovereign you have to be of this land. He's not of this land.

Tags
King Charles III, Royal family