This week, Charles III, King of Australia, visited the country for the first time as reigning monarch. He was greeted at a royal reception at Parliament House. He sat next to the Prime Minister, in front of an audience of other parliamentarians and dignitaries.
The King gave his speech in the style typical of a constitutional monarch. There was a timbre of genuine feeling in his voice, but its content was generally neutral and diplomatic. He acknowledged country and the experience of Australia's indigenous peoples. He ornamented his speech with references to various elements of Australiana - the laugh of the kookaburra and the warble of the magpie. He noted how much the nation had changed in his lifetime, whilst also promoting the need for constancy. It was inoffensive, relatively unremarkable and just what one would expect of a monarch in post-colonial Australia.
At the end of his address, an indigenous senator, Lidia Thorpe, broke whatever spell the King had cast over his audience. She charged out of the crowd and marched toward him, wearing a possum skin cloak. She shouted 'You are not my King! You committed genocide against our people!'. She was unruly and it took some time for security personnel to respond. She continued heckling and demanded a treaty with indigenous Australians. Just before security finally escorted her from the room, she was heard shouting 'Fuck the colony!'.
Many politicians, including both the Australian and British prime ministers, have condemned the protest as 'disrespectful' to the King. Labor senator, Murray Watt, has described the conduct as 'grandstanding'. Following the incident, former liberal minister, Scott Emerson, called Senator Thorpe 'The Queen of Irrelevancy'. The charge against her is essentially this: her tirade against the King was done in pursuit of narcissistic gratification, rather than the sincere advancement of indigenous Australia.
This criticism of Senator Thorpe has context. In fact, when he called the incident 'grandstanding', Senator Watt was expressing his long-standing complaint about how she comports herself in parliament: 'Her and Pauline Hanson[,] not a week goes by without the two of them at each other’s throats, disrupting the senate[,] and for what?' We need not descend into an analysis of Hansard to discover what Senator Watt was talking about.
In 2022, Senator Thorpe was embroiled in controversy. It was revealed she was in a romantic relationship with a known member of an outlaw motorcycle gang: Dean Martin of the Rebels. She was serving on a joint parliamentary committee on law enforcement and organised crime at the time.
When she was criticised about not disclosing the relationship, she posted a photograph of herself on Instagram. The photograph depicted her straddling a Harley Davidson motorbike in the company of two men dressed in what might be described as 'bikie' attire - all black, with jackets and sunglasses. The caption to the image read 'ran into some old mates'.
A senator being in a relationship with an associate of the criminal underworld is unbecoming in and of itself. Her knowingly remaining on the committee is clearly reproachable, involving a conflict of interest in public office. The criticism she attracted in 2022 was well-founded. The photograph Senator Thorpe posted cannot be described as any sort legitimate attempt to defend her decisions. It was meretricious and theatrical. It was grandstanding.
Thus, when Senator Thorpe blasted the King this week, Senator Watt, and others, viewed her actions through the prism of her previous behaviour. They saw her as grandstanding and gratifying her own ego as she has always been wont to do - she should be ignored and even condemned. Given past transgressions, their dismissing her protest against the King is perhaps forgivable.
However, it is important to consider Senator Thorpe's conduct through a different lens: her Aboriginality.
Aboriginality neither gives Senator Thorpe a general licence to misbehave nor does it invest her narcistic behaviour with merit which it otherwise does not possess. However, the World is more fluid than that. A protester might be at once egotistic and also have genuine sentiment for their cause. I doubt there are many indigenous Australians who have not got sincere feelings - whether for or against - the subject matter in the senator's speech. Given her past conduct, an inflated sense of self-aggrandisement undoubtedly drove the senator to a significant degree. However, her Aboriginality and connection to the plight of her people mean it is just as certain that there was at least an undercurrent of genuine protest in her actions.
Senator Thorpe's Aboriginality also changes the level of respect she might be obliged to bear for the monarch. I find it impossibly difficult to understand how any indigenous person could owe respect to the Crown. The Crown is the institution responsible for the near complete destruction of the indigenous peoples of Australia - robbing them of their lands, extinguishing their languages, and killing many of their people. By way of analogy, had the Japanese won the war and invaded Australia last century, they would likely have wrought the same destruction upon Anglo-Celtic culture. I doubt any Anglo-Celts in such a situation would feel any level of respect for that conquering empire. Senator Thorpe, and all other indigenous Australians, are under no obligation to respect the empire and its traditions which have been forced upon them to their detriment.
Senator Watt questions what the point of Senator Thorpe's tirade was. The King is new to the throne. He did not reign over Australia during colonisation. He is also a ceremonial monarch, without actual power to govern. He is neither personally responsible for the wrongs done against indigenous Australians nor is he able to effect reparations.
These arguments ignore the great significance indigenous Australia attaches to the Crown as an institution. British and Australian governments have always deliberately used the symbol of the Crown to communicate power over their subjects and compel them to submit. Since the 18th century to the present day, government officials have worn uniforms which prominently display the image of St Edward's Crown. Many legal and government documents bear the image too. Court proceedings sometimes commence with the judge's associate saying 'God Save the King!'. An indigenous accused in criminal proceedings faces the prosecutor, who is referred to as 'the Crown'. The actions of government which have destroyed so many aspects of the indigenous way of life are often commenced by something bearing the symbol of the Crown in one way or another. As much as it has become a symbol of power and authority, it has become for indigenous Australians a symbol of annihilation.
It is obviously true that the King is not personally responsible for the wrongs done to indigenous Australia. He has only taken to the throne in the past couple of years and is bereft of any actual power to govern. He is also an elderly man who is dying of cancer. Senator Thorpe does owe him the basic decency which she owes to any human being. However, her conduct did not breach whatever basic respect she owed. Her conduct was clearly not a personal attack on Charles III himself. Not one word of it was on the topic of his character or anything he had done personally. It was an attack on his office, the corporation sole that is the Crown. It is the duty of all those who occupy a public office to exercise resilience in the execution of it. In a modern constitutional monarchy, a monarch must be able to withstand protest from its subjects.
The Crown is the symbol of everything wrong that the British and Australian governments have ever done to indigenous Australians. Kevin Rudd's apology was not from the Crown as an institution, but the Australian government acting under it. The Crown itself has always been mum. Perhaps it has never apologised because an indigenous Australian has never before had the unfettered opportunity to complain directly to it. Noting her outburst did not result in any actual or risk of harm to anyone, Senator Thorpe cannot be faulted for taking advantage of a rare opportunity to tell the Crown exactly how a significant proportion of indigenous Australians feel. If the Senator's actions are the first step toward the King making a direct apology to indigenous Australians, then that would be a good thing for the healing of a nation wounded by its colonial history.
Senator Thorpe has a chequered political career, but the earful she gave the King was justified.
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