1 month ago
Thorpe removed from reception after yelling 'you stole from us' at king
Karen Middleton
The independent senator Lidia Thorpe has been removed from a parliamentary reception for King Charles and Queen Camilla after yelling “this is not your country” and “you are not my king” and “fuck the colony”.
After King Charles concluded his speech, Thorpe walked up the aisle towards the stage, yelling at the royal couple.
“You stole from us,” she shouted, as officials stepped forward to stop her reaching the stage.
… You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country.
As security officers escorted Thorpe back to the door, she shouted:
This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king.
As she left the hall and was forced back into the foyer she could be heard shouting: “Fuck the colony.”
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Andrew Messenger
Queensland LNP candidate Bree James has apologised for making a Nazi joke in a Facebook post.
On Saturday, the Barron River candidate posted an image of herself beside an election banner which had been vandalised with a spray painted moustache in the style of Adolf Hitler.
“Even the banner is getting in the spirit and celebrating my German heritage”, she said, in the post advertising the city’s German festival.
She apologised on the weekend, and again on Monday when Labor’s campaign bus visited her pre-poll booth.
James reportedly told the cameras the post was a joke in poor taste that she had apologised for “and I hope people can forgive me”.
On Monday, Labor opponent Craig Crawford said James is “unfit for office”.
Bree James is unfit for office, and people should not be voting for her in the upcoming election. David Crisafulli should have cut her then and then. I’m pretty sure that if I had done something stupid like that, I certainly would have offered my position up to the premier.
LNP leader David Crisafulli said on Monday that he’d spoken to his candidate and “I’ve expressed my view to her very clearly.
"Is this acceptable? It’s not. It’s disappointing, it’s wrong, it’s not funny”, he said.
Australian Monarchist League demands Thorpe resign
The Australian Monarchist League is demanding the resignation of Senator Lidia Thorpe after her “failed attempt to disrupt His Majesty the King” at Parliament House this afternoon.
In a statement, the league’s national chairman, Philip Benwell, said:
Senator Thorpe should step down with immediate effect.
The Australian Monarchist League unequivocally condemns the ill-considered behaviour of this isolated senator.
Her childish demonstration has done nothing to diminish the gratitude and pride that millions of Australians have for our country, its history, its peoples and its sound system of governance. In fact, it has likely only strengthened these feelings.
Should she not resign, the league is calling for Thorpe’s “misconduct” to be addressed “in accordance with what is the obvious and prevailing public sentiment.”
Albanese’s $4.3m home buy not a good look, ex-Tory MP says
Rory Stewart, former Tory MP and co-host of the The Rest is News podcast, says Anthony Albanese’s purchase of a multimillion-dollar home on the New South Wales Central Coast “doesn’t look great”.
“The idea of buying luxury mansions doesn’t look great when you’re a leftwing leader,” he told David Speers, host of ABC Insiders, in an interviewed aired on Afternoon Briefing.
Keir Starmer’s popularity ratings are tanking because he’s getting wealthy donors to buy him fancy spectacles and clothes for his wife. And Boris Johnson was not helped by having or putting £100,000 wallpaper on his walls. David Cameron understood this and deliberately cut his salary when he came in as prime minister ... travelled on EasyJet.
When asked if it is fair to say voters don’t like to see their prime ministers getting anything, other than being paid, he said:
That’s true, and as a working politician, I often was resentful of that. I remember that there were times when I felt like saying to voters: ‘Listen, it would be better if we returned if you like to the British parliament of the early 20th century where MPs didn’t receive salaries and we’ll just work for free for you!’ But, of course, there are problems with doing that too.
When asked whether the coarseness of Trumpian politics were permeating the political culture in the Anglosphere, he said he had noticed the “dead cat strategy” in effect:
Which is - if somebody is focusing on some scandal, something that you’ve got wrong, you just slap a dead cat on the table and move on.
Thorpe says she intended to hand king ‘a notice of complicity in genocide’
Senator Lidia Thorpe has released a statement following her remarks to the king in Parliament House this afternoon.
She said she intended to hand “a notice of complicity in the genocide of the First Peoples of this county” to King Charles.
The senator’s uncle, Robert Thorpe, issued the same notice to the international criminal court on 13 October, according to the statement.
She said:
Today I intended to hand King Charles a notice of complicity in the genocide of the First Peoples of this county. Krauatungalung elder, Uncle Robbie Thorpe, issued this notice to the international criminal court on October 13 this year, requesting King Charles be charged and prosecuted for genocide.
The visit by the so-called king should be an occasion of truth-telling about the true history of this country.
The colonial state has been built on the continuing genocide on First Peoples.
Today I was silenced and removed from the parliamentary reception when pointing out that the Crown stole from First Peoples.
The truth is, this colony is built on stolen land, stolen wealth and stolen lives.
The British Crown committed heinous crimes against the First Peoples of this country. These crimes include war crimes, crimes against humanity and failure to prevent genocide. There has been no justice for these crimes. The Crown must be held accountable.
Today, the AFP threatened to arrest me for wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Stolen Land, Stolen Lives, Stolen Wealth’. I was at a rally to call out the crimes committed by the Crown. This is a clear attack on free speech and expression, at the war memorial of all places.
Sovereign elder Uncle Coco was arrested by AFP today for peacefully standing up against the genocide on his people and all First Peoples of this continent.
This colonial government will punish our elders for protesting against a genocide but refuse to hold the perpetrators to account.
Today we call for justice, an end to this ongoing genocide, for treaty and a republic. We want to be able to live in peace and finally come together as a nation.
Natasha May
‘Spectrum of supported decision-making’ in new aged care bill, department says
Older Australians will be supported to make decisions for themselves for as long as possible under the new aged care bill, the Department of Health and Aged Care said this afternoon when answering questions from the Senate standing committee on community affairs on the bill.
Mel Metz, the assistant secretary of the legislative reform branch in the department, said – after peak bodies representing older people advocated strongly for including supported decision-making arrangements in the bill – that the model on which the framework was based came from an Australian Law Reform Commission report as well as more recent endorsement through the disability royal commission.
Supported decision-making recognises capacity to make decision is not black and white, and it exists on a spectrum and can fluctuate, and that’s especially true in aged care for people with dementia.
What supported decision-making means is that rather than substituting a new decision-maker when a person’s decision-making capacity diminishes, people are supported to make decisions for themselves for as long as possible.
There’s a single concept of supporter rather than a dual representative and supporter framework in the bill – recognising that capacity isn’t static and that a person might need different levels of assistance day to day.
Drawing on state and territory arrangements in place, “there is a substitute decision-making in the bill – but that’s at the very end of that spectrum of supported decision-making for people who absolutely cannot make decisions even with support”.
Thorpe’s behaviour ‘alienated a lot of people’ – Labor MP
Over to Afternoon Briefing, where – you guessed it – the king and queen are on the agenda.
Speaking with the ABC, the assistant minister to the prime minister, Patrick Gorman, who is responsible for much of the planning behind the king’s whistle-stop tour, commented on Lidia Thorpe’s remarks shouted to the king at the state reception in Parliament House’s Great Hall.
I thought that behaviour was pretty inappropriate. I think that it alienated a lot of people. And I think most of the Australian public expect that their members and senators behave with dignity, especially at these formal state occasions.
I can’t speak for the Senate, they are in charge of their own members and their own disciplinary procedures. What I hope is that this doesn’t detract from the fact that it was an incredibly warm reception for the king and the queen. There was clearly a lot of people in the room who were really honoured to have been invited to that very special occasion.
As you said, the first time that we’ve had a king of Australia in fact visit Australia, and what we saw in the king’s remarks were his warm affection for this country – a country that he came here as a student. He’s visited 17 times. And I think that he really went out of his way, not just to talk about the causes that were important to him, such as climate change, but also to talk about his great appreciation of the respect that First Nations Australians have shown him on those visits.
King’s visit ‘difficult for many First Nations people’, Greens senator says
Greens senator Dorinda Cox says the visit of King Charles III is a reminder of colonialism’s “harrowing injustices”.
The Yamatji-Noongar woman said on Monday – before Senator Lidia Thorpe’s comments disrupted a state reception in Canberra – that the federal Truth and Justice Commission Bill, introduced by the Greens, would allow for First Nations-led, trauma-informed truth telling to fully implement all pillars of the Uluru statement from the heart.
In a statement, Cox said:
This visit will be difficult for many First Nations people, who still feel the injustice every day of colonialism, especially our stolen generations, which are perpetuated through systemic and structural racism and discrimination. Visiting memorials and attending charity events is not changing the harrowing injustices and ongoing unacceptable rates of deaths of our people in Australia.
First Nations justice, truth telling and healing needs to be a priority. The king should be clear in his recognition and support of this. He now needs to be on the right side of history. We need the Labor government to have clear instructions from their sovereign head that we can’t continue on this path if we want peace and healing, this comes with accepting responsibility for the role, actions and destructive impacts of the Crown.
Cox went on to say:
I invite the king to reflect on this and that sovereignty that was never ceded. There is trauma and grief for First Nations people. He needs to hear this and acknowledge it. The commonwealth has nothing to fear from this formal recognition.
First Nations communities continue to feel the impact of policies rooted in colonial attitudes – such as forced removals, land and resources theft, and systemic discrimination – that has left deep scars that we need to heal from. We cannot do this without truth telling and truth listening.
The time is now. It’s time to respect our inherent, sovereign right to self-determination, including the protection and preservation of our lands and waters – under our custodianship. Ensuring Australia’s First Peoples are consulted in every vital decision about our shared future.
Emily Wind
Watt welcomes compensation ruling on illegal Qantas sackings
The workplace relations minister, Murray Watt, has welcomed the federal court decision for Qantas to compensate workers found to be illegally sacked during the pandemic.
In a post to X, Watt wrote:
I congratulate [the Transport Workers Union] for pursuing this case in the Federal Court. I also congratulate Qantas’ new management team for taking a more cooperative approach to workplace relations, which is delivering for the company and its workers alike.
Tony Abbott says ‘unfortunate political exhibitionism’ from Lidia Thorpe
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who attended the event, expressed his dismay at Lidia Thorpe’s remarks to the King in the Great Hall.
“It’s unfortunate political exhibitionism, that’s all I’d say,” he said after the event.
Another guest, businessman Dick Smith, said the disruption was an aspect of Australian democracy.
I think that’s the wonderful part of our democracy – that she’s not going to be put in jail.
Smith has known the king for many years, including a meeting in 1982 when Smith landed his helicopter on the grounds of Balmoral Castle in the UK.
Catie McLeod
Sewage theory investigated after Sydney beach tar balls
The sewage theory floated as an explanation for the “tar balls” that closed eastern Sydney beaches last week has not been ruled out by the lead agency investigating the source of the pollution.
In a statement this afternoon, a spokesperson for NSW Maritime said:
Investigations are continuing, with a number of samples still being tested by the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
An update will be provided once the origin is definitively known.
On Friday, Jon Beves, a chemistry expert from University of New South Wales who is part of a team of scientists analysing the debris, told Guardian Australia the “most logical answer” was that the balls were formed from crude oil.
However, he said the balls also contained other greasy materials including fatty acids which meant they potentially had come from a sewage outflow instead of an oil spill or leak off the coast.
Later that same day, the NSW Maritime executive director, Mark Hutchings, said:
Based on advice from the EPA, we can now confirm the balls are made up of fatty acids, chemicals consistent with those found in cleaning and cosmetic products, mixed with some fuel oil.
They are not harmful when on the ground, but should not be touched or picked up.
Full transcript of Thorpe yelling at King Charles
Karen Middleton
Thank you, Emily Wind. Let’s get on with the rest of the day’s breaking news.
Over in Canberra, our team has pieced together the full transcript of senator Lidia Thorpe’s remarks to King Charles at a state reception in the Great Hall at Parliament House a short time ago:
You are not our king. You are not sovereign. You are not our king. You are not sovereign.
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. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist. This is not your land. This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king.
Fuck the colony. Fuck the colony. Fuck the colony.
Emily Wind
Many thanks for joining me on the blog today, Daisy Dumas will be with you for the next little while. Take care.
Here’s another angle of Lidia Thorpe’s protest in parliament house earlier this afternoon, where she shouted following King Charles’ speech:
