An Australian politician who interrupted King Charles‘s address at Australia’s Parliament today with a foul-mouthed rant is a controversial activist with a history of outbursts and stunts.
On Monday, Indigenous activist Senator Lidia Thorpe, 51, screamed ‘f*** the colony’ and ‘you are not my king’ at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.
Dressed in a native fur coat, she shouted: ‘You committed genocide 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 land.
‘Give us our treaties. We want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist. This is not your land, this is not your land.’
Senator Thorpe then repeatedly yelled, ‘Not my king,’ as she was led out of the room by security.
Lidia Thorpe has a track record of stunts at major political events and angry outbursts, from calling the Queen a ‘coloniser’ to berating a group of men outside a strip club.
She was even forced to quit as Greens party deputy leader in the Senate after she failed to disclose her relationship with former biker gang boss Dean Martin.
Her tirade came during King Charles III’s first visit to Australia as monarch
She was even forced to quit as Greens party deputy leader in the Senate after she failed to disclose her relationship with former biker gang boss Dean Martin (pictured together)
In 2022, the Greens Senator mockingly recited the parliamentary oath of allegiance while slamming the late Queen as a ‘coloniser’ in 2022.
The Aboriginal senator marched into the floor of the chamber on Monday morning and gave a Black Power salute as she prepared to take her oath for the start of a new post-election parliament.
After raising her right fist, she begrudgingly swore to serve the 96-year-old monarch, who was Australia’s head of state, as King Charles is now.
Ms Thorpe sarcastically recited the oath of allegiance as she continued holding her fist in the air.
‘I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second,’ the outspoken politician said in a mocking tone.
Her conduct received support from Greens Leader Adam Bandt, who tweeted: ‘Always was. Always will be.’
Senator Thorpe was reprimanded and, smirking, eventually recited the oath correctly and was sworn into parliament.
Lidia Thorpe once strode into the Senate with her fist in the air and then mockingly called the late Queen a ‘coloniser’
Lidia Thorpe (pictured) attempted to storm the podium during British trans critic Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s speech for the Let Women Speak rally outside parliament house in March
‘Senator Thorpe, Senator Thorpe, you are required to recite the oath as printed on the card,’ said the chamber’s president Sue Lines.
After reciting the pledge as required, Thorpe declared on Twitter: ‘Sovereignty never ceded.’
Later that year, after the death of the Queen, the firebrand politician Lidia Thorpe unleashed an extraordinary tirade against Her Majesty and the ‘institution she represents’.
Just days before her funeral, she wrote on X/Twitter: ‘They buried our kids in the sand and kicked off their heads, and you want me to pay my respects?’
‘This isn’t about an individual, it’s about the institution she represents and the genocide that they’re responsible for.’
Lidia Thorpe (pictured) previously fired up about ‘paying respects’ to the late Queen saying the British Empire declared war on First Nations people
Her Majesty (pictured in 2012) passed away aged 96 at Buckingham Palace in September 2022
A seething Ms Thorpe, a Senator for the Greens, took to Twitter on Thursday (pictured)
A day earlier Thorpe penned an opinion piece for The Guardian in which she said the ‘legacy of the crown’ for Indigenous Australians was ‘education that erases us and prisons that kill us’.
She added: ‘The ‘British empire’ declared a war on these shores, against this country’s First Nations peoples. This led to massacres. And you want a minute’s silence from me?’
‘Colonial governments are complicit in continuing the crimes against First Nations people because that is the agenda of the coloniser… around the world. To think that people can stand and celebrate that is ignorant and painful.’
The rants come after Ms Thorpe had taken a more subtle approach in a Twitter thread on Monday, saying she knew people had expected her to lash out.
‘The Queen is dead. I’ve had some days to reflect, and know that people wanted me to come out ranting and raving to confirm their views of me as a crazy Blak woman,’ she wrote.
‘In the days since, I’ve seen anger and disbelief from First Nations people at the glorification of our oppressor.’
She concluded the thread: ‘We could use this moment and momentum to empower people to democratically elect our own leader. Someone who represents all of us, uniting a country that has owned up to its past and chosen its own future.’
Thorpe said modern Australia must acknowledge the injustices inflicted upon generations of Aboriginal people to become a ‘mature’ nation.
She has called for official recognition in the form of a treaty.
‘Australia is one of the few Commonwealth countries that does not have a treaty with First Nations people.’ she said.
Proponents for a treaty say it is integral to a reconciliation process, would provide practical rights for Indigenous Australians, and that it would bring self-determination to First Nations people that would bridge the social and economic gap.
‘Treaty is an end to the war. It’s when we come together to negotiate how we can live alongside each other, peacefully. Treaty will create a new national identity, that we can all feel proud of and a part of,’ the Senator said.
Thorpe has also been in hot water of another foul-mouthed tirade at a Melbourne strip club last year.
She was seen screaming profanities at punters claims the rogue senator was going up to ‘white men’ before the incident saying: ‘You stole my land’.
Senator Thorpe was filmed unleashing an extraordinary torrent of abuse at a group of men outside Maxine’s Gentlemen’s Club in north Melbourne at 3am, telling one: ‘You’ve got a small penis’ and another ‘you’re marked’ in a menacing tone.
David Ross, general manager of Maxine’s, told Daily Mail Australia that Senator Thorpe’s behaviour was ‘just unacceptable’ and that she has been banned for life from the establishment.
He revealed that bouncers kept a close eye on the Greens defector throughout the evening because she was ‘a bit argumentative’ during the wild night out with friends.
He said: ‘One of our security guards said they thought she [Senator Thorpe] was going to be trouble because she was going up to white men in the crowd and telling them that they’d stolen her land.’
Senator Thorpe, who was out for a 50th birthday party with a group of three friends, had earlier told 7News that she was provoked and harassed by the men.
‘It’s sad people are utilising whatever they can to drag me down when we’re trying to discuss important issues in this country,’ she told the network.
Senator Lidia Thorpe (pictured) was filmed unleashing an extraordinary spray on a group of men outside a Melbourne strip club at 3am on Sunday
David Ross, general manager at Maxine’s Gentleman’s Club, has handed Senator Thorpe a lifetime ban
Senator Thorpe was later pictured lying on her back in front of a float during Sydney Mardi Gras
Senator Lidia Thorpe posing on a Harley Davidson motorbike
In 2021, she even allegedly left another female politician in tears after telling her ‘at least I keep my legs shut’ during a debate in parliament.
Lidia Thorpe was accused of making the ‘disgusting’ comment towards Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes on the floor of the Upper House.
Liberal Senator Ben Small interrupted proceedings to claim he clearly heard Ms Thorpe’s insult, with the 48-year-old then offering a retraction in the senate chamber.
Ms Thorpe though did not confirm the nature of her comment.
‘Senator Thorpe just made the most outrageous statement directed at Senator Hughes, which you probably didn’t hear,’ Mr Small said.
‘But in the scheme of disgusting statements made in this chamber that surely ranks at the top of them.’
Attorney-General Amanda Stoker’s Assistant Minister also alleged she heard Ms Thorpe direct the jibe at Ms Hughes.
Lidia Thorpe (pictured) allegedly left female Liberal senator Hollie Hughes in tears after telling her ‘at least I keep my legs shut’
Senator Hughes on Thursday morning said she found the comments ‘beyond disgusting, beyond vile.’
‘I’m still a bit in shock,’ she told Sky News. Senator Hughes said Senator Thorpe’s comments were a reference to her giving birth to an autistic son.
Thorpe later said: ‘I just want to unreservedly take back my comments that I made earlier and I apologise to that senator wholeheartedly, Senator Hughes.’
Senator Small alleged outside the chamber he distinctly heard Ms Thorpe say ‘at least I keep my legs shut’.
‘I did very clearly hear Senator Thorpe heckle ”at least I kept my legs shut”,’ he said. ‘That’s when I leapt to my feet to raise a point of order.’
Federal MP Jason Falinski said the Greens senator’s alleged insult was a form of ‘slut-shaming’.
‘It has no place in public life, and frankly I don’t think it has a place in the wider Australian community,’ the member for Mackellar on Sydney’s Northern Beaches told 2GB.
He added: ‘It’s nothing short of slut-shaming.’
Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes was allegedly on the receiving end of the ‘disgusting’ comment
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on Thorpe’s outburst in Parliament House on Monday, but sources brushed off the lone protestor, saying Their Majesties were ‘deeply touched’ at the warmth of the welcome they had received throughout the day.
During the tirade, King Charles and Queen Camilla were seen laughing off the politician’s heckling.
Australia was a British colony for more than 100 years, a period during which thousands of Aboriginal Australians were killed and communities were displaced wholesale.
The country gained de facto independence in 1901, but has never become a fully fledged republic.
In 1999, Australians narrowly voted against removing the Queen, amid a row over whether her replacement would be chosen by members of parliament, not the public.
