Lidia Thorpe: Aboriginal senator posts cartoon of beheaded king hours after royal visit 'genocide' heckling

Lidia Thorpe, the Aboriginal senator who screamed "you are not my king" at Charles during a welcoming in Canberra has now shared a cartoon of the monarch beheaded

A senator has posted a cartoon of a beheaded King Charles just hours after screaming “you are not my king” during his visit to Australia.

Lidia Thorpe, who campaigns on First Nations issues, disrupted Charles’ welcome to the capital Canberra with her outburst which overshadowed a speech by the King highlighting his debt to the descendants of Australia’s first inhabitants. She claimed “genocide” had taken place by colonialists.

And now she has shared on Instagram a cartoon of the King’s head lying next to a crown. The cartoon was made by Matt Chun who is coeditor of anti-imperialist The Sunday Paper. During the monarch’s welcome in Canberra, Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese also hinted at his hopes Australia will ditch the monarchy and become a republic when he told the King: “Nothing stands still.”

Charles and Camilla have faced low-key demonstrations during their tour of Australia, which began today, from supporters of First Nations resistance to colonisation, who have been displaying a banner with the word “decolonise” at a number of events. But the protest from Ms Thorpe is likely to be seen as an embarrassment for Charles, who is making his first visit to Australia as King.

After the King spoke to guests at Parliament House, Ms Thorpe, who wore a possum skin coat and carried a traditional message stick, shouted: “You are not our King, you are not sovereign … you have committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us … Our babies, our people. You destroyed our land.”

As she was gently ushered from the building’s hall, she screamed: “Give us a treaty – we want a treaty with this country … This is not your land, this is not your land, you are not my King, you are not our King.”

It is understood the King was unruffled and did not let the outburst overshadow what the royal party viewed as a positive day in the Australian capital. Aunty Violet Sheridan, a senior Ngunnawal Elder who formally welcomed Charles and Camilla to her ancestral lands when they entered Parliament House, said the senator did not speak for her.

She said: “We are all so disappointed by it. To have that in the Great Hall – disgusting. I am so upset about her. He has waited so long to be king, he has rehearsed for it all his life. He is our king, our sovereign and he has got cancer.” Charles and Camilla were earlier welcomed at Canberra airport with a traditional smoking ceremony where guests wafted burning eucalyptus over themselves, chosen for its health benefits in light of the King’s ongoing cancer treatment.

The royal couple commemorated Australia’s war dead at the national memorial, laying floral tributes as hundreds of well-wishers turned out to see the couple – including an alpaca who sneezed in front of the King. But the protest made headlines and the senator told BBC News afterwards: “I wanted to send a clear message to the King of England that he is not the king of this country.

“He is not my king. He is not sovereign. We are sovereign. To be sovereign, you have to be of the land. He is not of this land.” In a statement before her outburst the senator criticised Mr Albanese, claiming his government had backed down on a treaty with Australia’s First Nations.

Mr Albanese has a long-term aim of steering Australia towards becoming a republic but the plans are on hold after Australians overwhelmingly rejected a plan to give greater political rights to indigenous people in a referendum held last year.

In a speech before Charles’ address, the prime minister said to Charles: “You have shown great respect for Australians even during times when we have debated the future of our own constitutional arrangements and the nature of our relationship with the crown. Nothing stands still.”