Britain’s King Charles III has been heckled by an Aboriginal lawmaker after he arrived in Australia for the first visit to the country by a reigning monarch in more than a decade.
Charles, who is on his first royal tour since announcing his cancer diagnosis in February, was confronted on Monday after completing an address to Australia’s Parliament in which he urged stronger action against climate change.
“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back! Give us what you stole from us!” Senator Lidia Thorpe yelled.
“Our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You destroyed our land!”
“This is not your land!” Thorpe continued as she was led away by security.
Thorpe, who is the first Indigenous person to represent the state of Victoria in the Senate, was earlier pictured turning her back when God Save the King was played in anticipation of Charles’s arrival.
Australia was settled by the British in the late 18th century, resulting in the mass displacement of Aboriginal communities and countless deaths due to disease and frontier massacres.
The country has had de facto independence from Britain since 1901, but remains a Commonwealth realm with the British monarch as the head of state.
Australians voted to retain the monarch in a 1999 referendum, and last year rejected proposals to recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution and establish an Indigenous consultative body.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has expressed his preference for Australia to become a republic but has ruled out holding a referendum on the issue during the current parliamentary term.
Charles and Queen Camilla landed in Sydney on Friday, kicking off a nine-day tour of Australia and Samoa.
In his speech to Parliament, Charles called on Australia to take a leadership role in the fight against climate change, calling the growing intensity of bushfires and floods in the country an “unmistakable sign” of a warming planet.
“Australia has all of the natural ingredients to create a more sustainable regenerative way of living,” said Charles, a longtime environmental advocate.
“By harnessing the power with which nature has endowed the nation, whether it be wind or its famous sunshine, Australia is tracking the path towards a better and safer future. It’s in all our interests to be good stewards of the world. And good ancestors to those who come after us.”
Charles and Camilla earlier in the day laid wreaths at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
On Sunday, the king and the queen attended a church service in Sydney after taking the previous day to rest.
