King Charles accused of genocide in his beloved Australia

Britain’s King Charles was accused of  genocide during his 16th visit to Australia, a country he has always embraced with “deep love and affection.”

Thousands came out to greet the King and Queen Camilla during their tour – their first major official visit since Charles was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February.

But during a speech in Parliament House, Canberra, Australian senator and Indigenous activist, Lidia Thorpe, called him out for injustices towards her community.

Shortly after King Charles had paid his "respects to the traditional owners of the lands,” Thorpe seized the chance to point out that she did not accept him as her King or accept his sovereignty over Australia.

“You committed genocide against our people,” she said. “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.”

Unlike New Zealand and other former British colonies, a treaty with Indigenous peoples in Australia was never established.

A debate has been raging for years over how to address the shocking inequalities between First Nations people and the general population. Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander people are known to have more health issues, higher rates of imprisonment and lower incomes.

In the past, Thorpe has insisted that the incarceration and violence is due to colonization and needs a national treaty between the government and Indigenous people to tackle First Nations’ issues, according to Reuters.

Last year, Australia held a referendum on giving greater political rights and recognition to Indigenous people, and creating a body of Indigenous activists and advisors to the government, but the vote came out 60% to 40% against.

Calling on the King to push for a treaty, Thorpe said outside Parliament House, “We can do that, we can be a better country – but we cannot bow to the colonizer, whose ancestors he spoke about in there are responsible for mass murder and mass genocide."

But Aboriginal elder Aunty Violet Sheridan, who had been part of a line up earlier to welcome the Royals to the capital, said Thorpe’s intervention in Parliament House was “disrespectful. She does not speak for me,” she added.

Phot: screenshot from Regional Australia website.

Sheridan told the BBC: “The King’s not well. He’s going through chemo and he didn’t need this.” She went on to say, “I surely appreciate him visiting here. It may be the last time he comes. Heaps of people share my thoughts.”

Thorpe, who was wearing a traditional possum skin cloak, failed to get a reaction out of King Charles and Queen Camilla before being escorted from the chamber by security.

Outside, she told the BBC that she wanted to send “a clear message to the King” – that "To be sovereign you have to be of the land. He is not of this land.”

Photo: screenshot from BBC video

The current Prime Minister, Labor’s Anthony Albanese also appeared unfazed by Thorpe’s remarks, instead flagging up Australians’ respect for the monarchy.

Albanese also praised King Charles’ work on climate change and barely touched on the Republican cause which his center-left party espouses.

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