King Charles' speech to the Australian Parliament on Monday was thrown into chaos after a senator shouted “You are not my king” and accused him of “competing genocide against his people” .
The 75-year-old cancer-stricken monarch is currently on a five-day tour Down Under with his wife Queen Camilla as part of an official state visit.
This is the first time a king has visited Australia as a sovereign.
After finishing her speech in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra on Monday, Indigenous senator Lydia Thorpe immediately rushed to the stage.
“This is not your country,” she yelled at Charles, who was sitting next to his wife, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“You have committed genocide against our people. Give us back our land. Give us back what you stole from us, our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. Please.”
The camera then cut to the royal family staring at Thorpe's protests with no visible reaction.
“You are not our king, you are not our sovereign… you have destroyed our land,” she continued, but was stopped from approaching the king.
Thorpe was then escorted out of the hall by security, shouting, “Fuck the colonies.”
During a trip to Australia, a former British colony, Charles and Camilla found themselves at the center of various protests.
The King acknowledged indigenous communities in his speech, saying: The Ngunnawal people and all indigenous peoples who have loved and cared for this continent for 65,000 years. ”
Australia continues to have a monarch as its head of state and is the only Commonwealth country that does not have treaties with indigenous peoples.
Ahead of Charles' speech on Monday, protesters held up banners with the words “decolonization” written on them.
The king also attended a ceremonial welcome and parliamentary reception ahead of his official address to the government, but six of the country's premiers declined to attend.
The King took over the throne in 2022 following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, at the age of 96 and became Head of the Commonwealth.
The countries that make up the British Commonwealth account for almost a third of the world's population. Since 1969, Charles has visited 46 of the 56 Commonwealth countries.
