Australians are deeply embarrassed by our rogue politician who unleashed on the King and Queen today in a tirade that demonstrated shocking disrespect, not just to the monarchy but two visiting septuagenarians.
While the King and Queen showed remarkable poise as they came under fire from Senator Lidia Thorpe, there is widespread revulsion that the couple were targeted in such a manner after the monarch – undergoing cancer treatment, lest we forget – travelled tens of thousands of miles to visit the nation he holds in such affection.
Honestly, it was like watching someone turn on your own grandparents.
Whatever you think of the Royal Family, watching Ms Thorpe shout at Charles and Camilla made most of us cringe. At best she made us look uncultured; at worst unhinged. We’re the land of mateship and solidarity and ‘she’ll be right’.
Senator Lidia Thorpe shouts at King Charles and Queen Camilla in Canberra, Australia
At the very least we like to think of ourselves as warm and courteous. We’re good sorts. Whether republican or monarchist we acknowledge the service and exhaustive charitable work undertaken by the Royal Family.
To find ourselves in the global spotlight because of the renegade senator, widely regarded as a serial pest, is mortifying. Worse, it occurred in our parliament, the heart of our democracy, where the King had just delivered a considered address which paid tribute to our First Nations people and our complicated history.
Ms Thorpe, who let rip at Charles screaming ‘f*** the colony’ and ‘you are not my King’, later said she was trying to serve the monarch with a ‘notice of complicity in Aboriginal genocide’.
While everyday Australians see freedom of speech as a cornerstone of our democracy, this visceral confrontation was instantly condemned by politicians, fellow senators, war veterans and the public.
We may live 12,000 miles away but Australians are genuinely engaged in the lives of the Royal Family. We know they’ve had, to use our parlance, a b*****d of a year. To attack a bloke who has paused his cancer treatment to renew bonds with a country he has adored since boyhood is deeply un-Australian. We’re better than that. Kinder. More jovial.
While former prime minister Tony Abbott dismissed Ms Thorpe’s attack as ‘political exhibitionism’ others were calling for her resignation.
Entertainment reporter Peter Ford was unequivocal: ‘She’s revolting,’ he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. ‘Surely there can be a sanction or penalty that can be imposed on her.’
Australians have turned out in their droves to meet the royal couple
The King shakes hands with Australian PM Anthony Albanese during his state visit
Top rating radio host Neil Mitchell was also quick to condemn the outburst: ‘Appalling manners towards a guest in this country. She needs a better way to make her point.’
Victoria Cross recipient Keith Payne, who was awarded the highest military honour for his service in Vietnam, spoke to the King as the royal couple left the reception. He was blunt about Ms Thorpe’s behaviour: ‘I was absolutely amazed that she got through the door.’
Meanwhile even Ms Thorpe’s fellow senator Ralph Babet, of the United Australia Party, demanded Ms Thorpe apologise: ‘To show such utter disrespect to King Charles, who has travelled to Australia despite ongoing cancer treatment, is disgusting.’
He continued: ‘Senator Thorpe has disgraced not only herself and the Australian Parliament but every Australian man, woman and child.’
While the Australian Monarchist League has called for Ms Thorpe’s resignation, the royals appeared unfazed by the incident with the King and Queen smiling as they turned to speak to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his fiancée Jodie Haydon.
Australians have turned out in their droves to meet the royal couple who, far from losing supporters in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, retain enormous goodwill towards ‘the firm’.
The couple’s calm in the face of provocation make evoke memories of how the then Prince Charles’s reacted exactly 30 years ago when shots were fired at him by a student at an engagement in Darling Harbour.
On that occasion, the heir to the throne stood twiddling his cufflinks, unsure of what was going on when he was pushed to the side of the stage by his bodyguard.
The King and Queen showed remarkable poise as they came under fire from Ms Thorpe
Ms Thorpe, a former Greens senator who now represents her state as an independent, had earlier in the day scuffled with police outside Parliament in Canberra.
Video shows a police officer holding the senator by her red pullover as she joined protesters outside the Australian War Memorial. Ms Thorpe then removes her jumper in an effort to escape and is seen walking away from the officer who follows her.
In Parliament a short time later she waited until the King finished his speech then strode forward in the chamber wearing a traditional fur coat and shrieking: ‘You’re not our King, you are not welcome. Give us our land back, give us what you stole from us, our bones, our skulls, our babies our people. You destroyed our land.
‘Give us a treaty,’ she continued. ‘We want treaty in this country. It’s not your land, it’s not your land. You are not my king, you are not our king.’
Ms Thorpe, who had earlier turned her back as God Save The King was played, was swiftly removed by security guards.
The senator’s anti-monarchy stance was evident in 2022 when she was sworn into Parliament. She modified the oath declaring allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II by adding the words ‘her colonising’ in reference to the then monarch.
Ms Thorpe has a history of activism, courting controversy with several public demonstrations including protesting against an anti-trans rally, temporarily blocking the Sydney Mardi Gras in protest at police attendance and screaming profanities outside a Melbourne strip club at 3am. She was filmed as she screamed at a group of men, telling one ‘you’ve got a small penis’. She quit as deputy leader of the Greens in the Senate after it was revealed she had a relationship with the former president of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang while she was also serving on the parliament’s law enforcement committee.
Today the senator was slammed on social media with many calling for her resignation. ‘You swore an oath of office Lidia. I guess honour and integrity are alien concepts to you,’ wrote one.
Said another; ‘You swore an oath to serve the King and you get paid $250,000 (£130,000) a year to do so. Withdraw your allegiance and pay back the money you took from the Commonwealth if you don’t want to serve it with respect,’ wrote another.
And as another summed up: ‘Thorpe is a national embarrassment.’
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