Key Points
- The Senate has censured Lidia Thorpe over her protest durign King Charles’ Australia visit last month.
- Censures are an expression of the Senate’s disapproval of an individual’s actions.
- Senator Penny Wong condemned Thorpe’s actions as an attempt to boost her own profile.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has responded after the Senate voted to censure her over a protest she staged during King Charles’ Australian visit.
, declaring Charles was not her king, before being escorted out.
“You committed genocide against our people; give us our land back; give us back what you stole from us … we want a treaty in this country,” she shouted.
On Monday, the Senate passed a motion 46 votes to 12 to censure her over her actions.
Thorpe was not present for the vote due to a flight delay.
“Shame on you all”, Thorpe yelled in the Senate chamber after the vote.
“If (the king) comes back in, I’ll do it again.”
A censure motion has no specified consequences but serves as an expression of the Senate’s disapproval of an individual’s actions.
Whilst moving the motion, Labor senator and foreign minister Penny Wong condemned Thorpe’s actions as an attempt to boost her own profile.
“We should also signal the upholding of standards, standards of respect when we have dignitaries visit our parliament, in senators, Senator Thorpe’s case, no less than the head of state, and standards of respect when it comes to talking about our fellow Australians,” Wong said.
Liberal senator Simon Birmingham said the motion was not about what Thorpe had to say.
“It is about the conduct that was undertaken, the disruptive, disorderly and disrespectful approach that reflected so poorly upon all senators and this chamber and brought us into disrepute,” he said.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi labelled the motion a “disgrace”.
“I hope you hang your heads in shame,” she said to those who supported Thorpe’s censure.
“I thought we still lived in a democracy. We have a right to protest. We have a right to dissent. We have a right to disrupt, and that’s what Senator Thorpe did.”
Thorpe said in a statement before the vote took place that that motion showed “where the major parties’ priorities lie”.
“They don’t stand with First Peoples in this country. They stand against justice for our people, preferring instead to defend a foreign king, rather than listen to the truth, she said.
“In no way do I regret protesting the King. I would do it again. It is time this country reckons with its history, and puts a stop to the continuing genocide on First Peoples.”
Senator censures Ralph Babet over controversial tweet
United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet was also censured by the Senate over a controversial tweet he made after Donald Trump’s election win, which included a number of slurs.
He was not present for the motion.
In a tweet he said: “Australians will soon be put in prison for words that the authoritarian left deem to be offensive.”
Birmingham said the words Babat had placed on the public record were “abhorrent, and have no place in proper, orderly civil conduct and debate in 2024”.
