Indigenous Australian Senator Heckles King Charles

An An Indigenous senator hosts a reception for British monarch King Charles III. interrupted during his first visit since ascending the throne and called for a treaty between the Australian government and the indigenous people.

At an event welcoming the king to Australia at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday, Senator Lidia Thorpe called on the British monarch that he was not her king and that he should “give us back our country.”

“Give us what you stole from us,” Thorpe said before he was quickly escorted out of the room by security. “You destroyed our country. Give us a contract. We want a contract.”

King Charles is on his first trip to Australia since his coronation in 2023. While Australia is ruled separately from the British throne, the king remains its head of state. A nationwide vote in 1999 to establish a republic failed resoundingly.

During Thorpe’s protest, the king sat at a podium and chatted quietly with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Thorpe is a vocal advocate for the rights of Australia’s indigenous people, often protesting at events or in the Senate.

She was previously a senator for the left-wing Green Party, but resigned from the group in 2023 because of her support for an Indigenous advisory group to parliament – a body Thorpe opposed.