In theory, the most enduring image of King Charles’s first visit as monarch to Australia should have been the dramatic projections onto the Sydney Opera House, a nostalgic trip down pictorial memory lane of his and Queen Camilla’s previous trips Down Under on the sails of the iconic building.
And while the King himself is said to have been “deeply touched” by the display, it’s almost certain that history will remember this visit — which began with the couple touching down in wet and wind, a less than ideal weather omen — for the confrontation between the King and an Indigenous senator in Parliament.
“This is not your country,” shouted Lidia Thorpe after the monarch concluded a speech to the Aussie Parliament on Monday. “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.”
Thorpe, an independent senator who has been an outspoken advocate for Indigenous Australian rights and who has a history of disrupting events to bring attention to her cause, continued heckling the King as she was escorted from the room by security.
“This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king,” she shouted before being ejected into the foyer. “F — k the colony” were her parting words, a seeming reference to the British settlers who came to Australia 200 years ago with devastating consequences for the Indigenous people who’d been there for thousands of years already.
Charles, who turned to talk to the Australian prime minister while all this was happening, had not addressed Indigenous reconciliation in the speech he gave. He did, however, acknowledge that “throughout my life, Australia’s First Nations people have done me the great honour of sharing so generously their stories and cultures. I can only say how much my own experience has been shaped and strengthened by such traditional wisdom.”
There was also a traditional welcoming ceremony held for the couple before they entered Parliament earlier this morning.
It’s not the first tricky moment in Charles’s five day trip to Australia, his 16th ever but first as the country’s monarch, and something important enough, it seems, for him to have paused his cancer treatment for.
Of course, there have been crowds of Union Jack waving royalists to greet them, although nothing near the scale or fervour of the ones that thronged the streets to catch a glimpse of Diana, Charles wryly trailing her, in 1983. That said: The University of Queensland’s Monarchist League claimed “record crowds” greeted the King on a visit to the Australian War Memorial, without providing numbers.
Even these walkabouts, however, have been visited by the elephant-in-the-room of Republicanism, a sentiment that’s on the rise in Australia, one of 14 overseas realms he’s king of courtesy of their historical ties to the British Empire.
“Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land,” chanted protesters in the background as Charles and Camilla smiled and greeted royal enthusiasts at St Thomas’ Anglican church, where the pair attended church yesterday after touching down on Friday and taking a “rest day” to acclimatize.
Another outlet, the Zillenial-aimed Pedestrian, criticized the King and Queen for “smoke-bombing” — as in, metaphorically throwing a smoke bomb and disappearing in the haze — at a luncheon given in their honour 10 minutes after giving a brief speech.
“He straight up Harold Holt-ed out of there, letting the suited lawmakers enjoy the function — which was put on purely for the 75-year-old — without his presence,” wrote the online outlet, a reference to the Australian prime minister who disappeared without a trace in 1967.
There have also been significant political snubs: Several high-profile leaders have cited “scheduling conflicts” that mean they’re unable to be at official events the country is throwing for the royals on their visit.
And while it’s hardly a shock that Australia, a country that actually held a referendum about ditching the royals back in 1999, would be the site of several anti-monarchist encounters, it can hardly be the reception Charles and Camilla were hoping for. Not that their public faces have given anything away: Just as he calmly turned away from Thorpe’s heckling, Charles has carried on royal business as usual, even planting a tree — that great royal skill — at a bushfire research centre.
Next on their itinerary? They leave for Samoa on Tuesday, where the king will attend a meeting of the heads of the Commonwealth nations.
