Lidia Thorpe has emboldened protests against King Charles

King Charles and Queen Camilla flew to Samoa for the Commonwealth leaders’ meeting early on Wednesday, after completing their visit to Australia the previous day. Not, however, without again being confronted by the historic grievances of Aboriginal community leaders.

It was a disgraceful display of look-at-me exhibitionism, but Monday’s one-woman disruption of the King and Queen’s formal welcome by part-Aboriginal firebrand senator and full-time activist, Lidia Thorpe, gave others licence to express their concerns directly to King Charles. It was no surprise that they took the heavily indigenous-flavoured last day of the royal itinerary to do just that.

Unlike Thorpe’s outbursts on Monday, those remonstrations were very polite and low-key. But they were made nonetheless. Visiting the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Sydney, the King was met by community elders, including ‘Uncle’ Alan Murray. Murray said directly to the King, and referring directly to Thorpe’s outburst, ‘We’ve got stories to tell, and I think you witnessed that story yesterday in Canberra,’ he said.