Australian lawmakers have voted to censure an Aboriginal senator who heckled King Charles during his visit to Canberra last month, to express their \u201cprofound disapproval\u201d of her protest.<\/p>\n
Lidia Thorpe shouted \u201cyou are not my King\u201d and \u201cthis is not your land\u201d shortly after the King addressed the Great Hall of Parliament, in an effort to highlight the impacts of British colonisation.<\/p>\n
The Senate\u2019s censure, which passed 46-12, described Thorpe\u2019s actions as \u201cdisrespectful and disruptive\u201d and said they should disqualify her from representing the chamber as a member of any delegation.<\/p>\n
A censure motion is politically symbolic but carries no constitutional or legal weight.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the Senate vote on Monday, Thorpe told reporters she had been denied her right to respond in the chamber due to a flight delay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe British Crown committed heinous crimes against the first peoples of this country\u2026 I will not be silent,\u201d the independent senator said.<\/p>\n
Her protest last month drew immediate ire from across the political aisle, as well as from some prominent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders.<\/p>\n
But it also drew praise from some activists who argued that it highlighted the plight of Australia\u2019s first inhabitants, who endured colonial violence and still face acute disadvantages in terms of health, wealth, education, and life expectancy compared to non-Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n
Despite the protest, the King was warmly greeted by Australian crowds during his five-day tour alongside Queen Camilla.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have shown great respect for Australians, even during times when we have debated the future of our own constitutional arrangements and the nature of our relationship with the crown. Nothing stands still,\u201d Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in an official address.<\/p>\n
Thorpe has a history of Indigenous activism which has, at times, grabbed global headlines.<\/p>\n
During her swearing in ceremony in 2022, the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman referred to the Queen Elizabeth II as a coloniser \u2013 and was asked to retake her oath after facing criticism.<\/p>\n
Last year, Australia decisively rejected a proposal to grant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people constitutional recognition and allow them to establish a body to advise parliament on issues impacting their communities.<\/p>\n
The referendum \u2013 known as the Voice \u2013 became ensnared in a bruising campaign, and both sides of politics have sought to move on swiftly, leaving uncertainty over future policy.<\/p>\n
While the data suggests a majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people voted \u2018Yes\u2019, support wasn\u2019t unanimous. Thorpe herself was a leading \u2018No\u2019 campaigner, having criticised the measure as tokenistic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The post Australian senator censured for heckling King<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Australian senator censured for heckling King<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian lawmakers have voted to censure an Aboriginal senator who heckled King Charles during his visit to Canberra last month, to express their \u201cprofound disapproval\u201d of her protest. Lidia Thorpe shouted \u201cyou are not my King\u201d and \u201cthis is not your land\u201d shortly after the King addressed the Great Hall of Parliament, in an effort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}