'You are not our king': Lawmaker yells at King Charles during visit to Australia
King Charles III's landmark address to Australia's Parliament House on Monday was disrupted by a protesting lawmaker who shouted at Charles, "You are not my king."
Charles was finishing his address at the Great Hall of Parliament House when Sen. Lidia Thorpe, an Indigenous senator, approached the stage and began shouting, accusing British colonizers of taking Indigenous land in Australia.
"You committed genocide against our people," shouted Thorpe, an outspoken advocate for Indigenous rights. "Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us -- our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people."
"You are not our king, you are not sovereign... You destroyed our land," she said.
The cameras and the crowd inside the Great Hall turned towards Thorpe as Charles and his wife Queen Camilla watched her outburst without any visible reaction.
Thorpe was eventually stopped from approaching Charles and was escorted out of the chamber.
Buckingham Palace has not commented on the incident, which came during one of Charles' most important engagements on his first official visit to Australia as monarch.
Charles and Camilla landed on Friday for a five-day tour of Australia, one of the 15 Commonwealth realms where Charles is sovereign. The tour is Charles' first visit to an overseas realm since he became king in 2022 following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
When Charles was crowned in 2023, the new king faced protests in several Commonwealth countries, including Australia.
Some voices in Australia's indigenous communities, known as the country's First Nations people, have expressed apathy towards the coronation, pointing out that their land was stolen under the crown when British settlers first arrived in Australia.
At the time of the coronation, Australia's Republic Movement Co-chairman Craig Foster told ABC News that the moment marked, "an opportunity to think about our broader path forward and need for full and final independence."
Australia's current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who was by Charles's side at his address to Parliament Monday, has made it known that he is in favor of the country becoming a republic and has not ruled out holding a referendum on the matter in the future.
During their visit to Australia, Charles and Camilla have taken time to attend a church service in Sydney and visit the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier in Canberra.
A royal source told ABC News about their visit, "Their Majesties are deeply grateful to the very many thousands who turned out to support them, and are only sorry they didn't have a chance to stop and talk to every single one. The warmth and scale of the reception was truly awesome."
On Wednesday, Charles will travel to Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
The trip overseas for Charles and Camilla also comes as the king has slowly made a return to work following his cancer diagnosis.
Buckingham Palace announced on Feb. 5, that Charles had been diagnosed with cancer but has not disclosed publicly what type of cancer Charles was diagnosed with, nor what type of treatment he is undergoing.
In announcing Charles' return to public duties in April, the palace noted that Charles is still undergoing treatment but has been approved to remove some public-facing duties.
ABC News' Zoe Magee and Britt Clennett contributed to this report.
