{"id":15364,"date":"2024-10-27T09:17:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-27T09:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/not-my-king-protest-row-highlights-australian-divisions\/"},"modified":"2024-10-27T09:17:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T09:17:39","slug":"not-my-king-protest-row-highlights-australian-divisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/not-my-king-protest-row-highlights-australian-divisions\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Not my King\u2019 protest row highlights Australian divisions"},"content":{"rendered":"


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‘You are not my King’: Moment King Charles is heckled by Australian politician<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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When an Aboriginal Australian senator heckled King Charles moments after he delivered a speech in the nation\u2019s Parliament House, it caught the world\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

Lidia Thorpe\u2019s cries of \u201cnot my King\u201d and \u201cthis is not your land\u201d shone a light on a country that is still grappling with its colonial past.<\/p>\n

But in the debate that followed on the \u201cappropriateness\u201d of the protest, something else became clear: a split within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community itself.<\/p>\n

In the wake of an unsuccessful referendum on their constitutional recognition – which left many feeling silenced – the question Australia\u2019s first inhabitants are now grappling with is how to achieve the self-determination they have fought so long for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Indigenous Australians are classed as the oldest living culture on earth, and have inhabited the continent for at least 65,000 years.<\/p>\n

For more than 200 years though – since the 1770 arrival of Captain James Cook and subsequent British settlement – they have endured long chapters of colonial violence, including the theft of their lands, livelihoods, and even children.<\/p>\n

As a result, today, they still face acute disadvantages in terms of health, wealth, education, and life expectancy compared to non-Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n

But, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up less than 4% of the national population, their struggles rarely translate into national voting issues, experts say.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s Voice to Parliament referendum<\/a> – which asked whether Australia should recognise its first inhabitants in the constitution and allow them a body to advise the parliament – was a key exception.<\/p>\n

The result was a resounding \u2018No\u2019, with one major analysis of the data suggesting many voters found the proposal divisive and ineffective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"EPAEPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Voice to Parliament proposal was decisively rejected in a referendum last year<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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And while the figures indicate a majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people voted ‘Yes’, support wasn\u2019t unanimous. Thorpe herself was a leading \u2018No\u2019 campaigner, having criticised the measure as tokenistic and \u201can easy way to fake progress\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, a Widjabul Wia-bal woman and activist, says the \u2018No\u2019 outcome left most Indigenous Australians with \u201ca sense of humiliation and rejection\u201d. She adds that the debate itself – which saw countless examples of misinformation and disinformation – unleashed a wave of \u201cracist rhetoric\u201d that their communities are still recovering from.<\/p>\n

The big-picture impact of the Voice, Ms Baldwin-Roberts argues, has been a growing sentiment that traditional reconciliation efforts are \u201cdead\u201d. Those approaches have long tried to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians through polite dialogue and education.<\/p>\n

It was against this backdrop that Thorpe made her protest in parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t reconcile with a country that doesn\u2019t see you,\u201d Ms Baldwin-Roberts tells the BBC. \u201cYou can\u2019t reconcile with a country that doesn\u2019t think that you deserve justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Baldwin-Roberts says \u201cnew strategies\u201d are needed to disrupt the status quo. She sees Thorpe\u2019s action as \u201cincredibly brave\u201d and reflective of conversations many First Nations people are having.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are Indigenous communities around the country talking about our stolen children, our stolen histories – but she had access to that room. As an Australian senator she knows she\u2019s going to get media, and it\u2019s important to make this a talking point.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"EPAEPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Australia Day – held on the anniversary of Britain’s First Fleet arriving at Sydney Cove – has become an annual target of protests<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Daniel Williams, who is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the [referendum] last year, what do Indigenous people have left? How can we find [an] audience with the monarch to effect change?\u201d he asked a political panel on the ABC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re talking about 200 years of pain that is continuing to be unanswered and unresolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others see it differently though: there is a long history of Indigenous leaders petitioning the Royal Family to recognise their peoples\u2019 struggle, but the independent\u2019s senator\u2019s act – for some – went too far.<\/p>\n

Nova Peris, a former senator who was the first Aboriginal woman in parliament, described it as an \u201cembarrassing\u201d move which didn\u2019t \u201creflect the manners, or approach to reconciliation, of Aboriginal Australians at large\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both sides of parliament dismissed it as disrespectful and a failed attempt at grandstanding.<\/p>\n

Prof Tom Calma, a Kungarakan and Iwaidja man who was in the room, said it risked alienating \u201cthe other 96%\u201d of Australia\u2019s population who may not \u201csee or understand the enduring impacts of colonisation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the protest – the way that Senator Thorpe went about it – brings people along with us. And in the spirit of reconciliation, we need allies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"TomTom Calma<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tom Calma, left, pictured with King Charles on one of his visits to Australia<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Calma also felt that Thorpe\u2019s demand that King Charles \u201cgive [Indigenous people] a treaty\u201d was misplaced, given that those negotiations would be handled by Australia\u2019s government, not the Crown.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Australia is one of the only Commonwealth countries to have never signed a treaty, or treaties, with its first inhabitants, or to have recognised them in its founding document.<\/p>\n

And with a general election expected before mid-next year, both sides of politics have sought to move on swiftly from the Voice debate, leaving much uncertainty over future policy.<\/p>\n

For Ms Baldwin-Roberts, this week\u2019s juxtaposition between the crowds of royal supporters decked out in regalia, and those engaging in protest nearby, reflects \u201ca large separation and social reality between Australia\u2019s Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations\u201d that exists today.<\/p>\n

And in order to bridge that gap, she believes \u201cthere has to be some level of reckoning\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in different spaces, it\u2019s still a largely separated nation. So where do we go from here?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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‘You are not my King’: Moment King Charles is heckled by Australian politician When an Aboriginal Australian senator heckled King Charles moments after he delivered a speech in the nation\u2019s Parliament House, it caught the world\u2019s attention. Lidia Thorpe\u2019s cries of \u201cnot my King\u201d and \u201cthis is not your land\u201d shone a light on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[594,6397,6261,2862,797,682],"class_list":["post-15364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","tag-australian","tag-divisions","tag-highlights","tag-king","tag-protest","tag-row"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15366,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15364\/revisions\/15366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}