An Australian senator who berated King Charles III and shouted ‘You are not my King’ during a welcome reception has now posted a cartoon of the monarch beheaded, according to daily Mail.
Senator Lidia Thorpe waited until the end of a landmark speech Charles gave at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra to verbally attack him and claim ‘genocide’ had been committed against the Commonwealth country’s Indigenous people.And she has now reposted a cartoon of the monarch’s head lying next to a crown on her Instagram story, after it was created by Matt Chun, co-editor of anti-imperialist publication The Sunday Paper.
Questions have been raised over how the 51-year-old independent Senator – who demanded a treaty between Australia’s First Nations and its government – was able to speak for so long before being gently ushered from the Parliament House hall.
Charles and Camilla have faced low-key protests during their tour of Australia, from supporters of First Nations resistance to colonisation, who have been displaying a banner with the word ‘decolonise’ at a number of events.
But the outburst from an elected representative will be viewed as an embarrassment for Charles, who is making his first visit to Australia as King – although others labelled Senator Thorpe a ‘one-off idiot’ who was being ‘disrespectful and rude’.
Senator Thorpe refused to go away quietly, and claimed after the incident that the ‘bones and skulls’ of Aboriginal people are still in the Royal Family’s possession.
She told Sky News: ‘We have our bones and our skulls still in his possession, or 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.’
During her outburst, Senator Thorpe, dressed in a native fur coat, shouted that the monarch had ‘committed genocide against our people’, adding: ‘F*** the colony’.
Senator Lidia Thorpe reposted a cartoon of the King’s head lying next to a crown, after it was created by Matt Chun, co-editor of anti-imperialist publication The Sunday Paper
