Key Points
- The Senate has censured Lidia Thorpe for her protest during King Charles’ visit to Australia last month.
- Censures are the Senate’s expression of disapproval of an individual’s actions.
- Senator Penny Wong condemned Thorpe’s actions as an attempt to boost his own notoriety.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has responded after the Senate voted to censure her over a protest she organized during King Charles’ visit to Australia.
She said Monday’s no-confidence motion was “a clear expression of the racism I continually face in my workplace.”
Thorpe said the vote was: “A time where you see the Labor Party and the Liberal Party coming together to silence a Blak voice – that’s been happening in this country for over 200 years.”
declaring that Charles was not his king, before being escorted away.
“You committed genocide against our people; give us back our lands; give us back what you stole from us…we want a treaty in this country,” she shouted.
On Monday, the Senate passed a motion 46-12 to censure her for her actions.
Thorpe entered the Senate chamber after the vote and shouted, “Shame on you all.”
“If (the king) comes back, I will do it again.”
Thorpe was not present for the vote due to a flight delay. She said she contacted Labor Minister Don Farrell to ask him to delay the vote, but claimed she “was denied the right to be in this room while everyone else was voting to silence me “.
Thorpe later told reporters she “didn’t care” about being censored and tore up a piece of paper with the motion on it.
She referred to “our brothers and sisters in New Zealand last week” who and tore up a controversial bill that would reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi.
A motion of censure has no specific consequences but serves to express the Senate’s disapproval of an individual’s actions.
While introducing the motion, Labor senator and foreign minister Penny Wong condemned Thorpe’s actions as an attempt to boost his own image.
“We should also signal the observance of standards, standards of respect when dignitaries visit our parliament, in the case of senators, in the case of Senator Thorpe, no less than the head of state, and standards of respect when “It’s about talking about our fellow Australians,” Wong said.
Wong said Parliament would give Thorpe time to speak.
Liberal senator Simon Birmingham said the motion was not about what Thorpe had to say.
“This is about the conduct that was adopted, the disruptive, disorderly and disrespectful approach that has so badly tarnished the image of all senators and this House and which has brought us into disrepute,” he said. -he declared.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi called the motion a “disgrace”.
“I hope you will hang your heads in shame,” she said to those who supported Thorpe’s censorship.
“I thought we still lived in a democracy. We have the right to protest. We have the right to dissent. We have the right to disrupt, and that’s what Senator Thorpe did.”
Thorpe said in a statement before the vote that the motion showed “where the priorities of the main parties lie”.
“They do not stand with the First Peoples of this country. They oppose justice for our people, preferring instead to defend a foreign king rather than listen to the truth, she said.
“I in no way regret protesting against the king… it is time for this country to reckon with its history and put an end to the ongoing genocide against the First Peoples.”
Senator censures Ralph Babet for controversial tweet
United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet was also censured by the Senate for a controversial tweet he posted after Donald Trump’s victory in the US election, which contained a number of insults.
He was not present during the motion.
In a post on »
Birmingham said the words Babet placed in public records were: “abhorrent and have no place in proper and orderly civil conduct and debate in 2024.”
