The dignity of the Royals’ reception at Parliament House didn’t last long. Photo: Chris Johnson.
Don’t we all just love Aunty Violet Sheridan?
Such dignity was displayed yesterday by the Ngunnawal elder, who not only welcomed the King and Queen to traditional Country inside the Great Hall of Parliament House but also gave the monarch what appeared to be something of a lecture in the parliamentary forecourt as she shook his hand.
But she did it with a smile on her face while ‘gently but firmly’ making a point, which the King acknowledged, chatting and smiling back.
Inside the Great Hall, Aunty Violet rose to welcome the Royals to Ngunnawal Country.
She extended that welcome to all the other dignitaries in the room – the Governor-General, prime ministers past and present, MPs, Senators, the Speaker, the Senate President, their wives, husbands and partners – and then to every non-Indigenous person in attendance.
Aunty Violet Sheridan is a passionate Ngunnawal Elder who seeks to further the cause of reconciliation. Photo: Travis Radford.
Hers was a gracious message of Country that had never been ceded to anyone but on which the King and Queen were most welcome as honoured guests.
Indeed, the whole ceremony of the Parliament House reception for King Charles III and Queen Camilla was threaded with respect.
Respect for Country and respect for royalty. Respect for the bond between us all.
The King and Queen were heralded into the Great Hall by trumpeted fanfare and then escorted to the stage by Indigenous elders playing didgeridoo and clapping sticks.
A youth choir sang the national anthem in both English and Ngunnawal before Aunty Violet Sheridan offered her dignified welcome.
King Charles himself spoke of how much he had learned about life and the world from Australia’s First Nations people.
“It is in all our interest to be stewards of the world,” he said, adding there was much to be learned from First Nations people in that regard.
Anthony Albanese acknowledged the King’s deep affection and respect for Indigenous Australians.
“You have also shown a deep and abiding interest in reconciliation and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” the Prime Minister said.
“And 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. The Australia you first knew has grown and evolved in so many ways.”
And, of course, Lidia Thorpe turned up, screaming while dressed in marsupial skin.
The independent Senator, who only got into office because she used the Greens to get elected, hurled obscenities at the King as she marched towards the podium.
“F**k the colony,” she screamed three times while being escorted out of the hall.
Before that, as she approached the podium, she shouted: “You are not my King … you stole our land … you are not our King … Give us our land back that you stole from us.
“Our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people … We want treaty.”*
How she was allowed to approach the stage in such an aggressive manner is yet another cause for a thorough review of parliament’s security processes.
Sure, she’s a Senator and was an invited guest, but even guests need watching, particularly those with form.
There was a big security presence at Parliament House and particularly in the near vicinity of the Royals.
This shouldn’t have happened.
There were groans from the other guests, yet some would no doubt have been delighted at the outburst.
Thorpe kept screaming as she was escorted out of the Great Hall.
She had her moment in the spotlight … again.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who attended the event and witnessed it all, perhaps described it best when asked about it.
“It’s unfortunate political exhibitionism, that’s all I’d say,” he said.
Mr Abbott was right. That’s all it was.
It was an exciting moment in an otherwise brief and uneventful ceremony.
We’ll likely see more of the same from Thorpe until she is finally turfed out of the Senate.
I am very much a republican and also very much in favour of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
But nothing was progressed by Lidia Thorpe’s self-absorbed political stunt.
The far stronger message was delivered by Aunty Violet.
* This copy has been edited from its original version to remove a misheard and misquoted obscene word from one sentence, but also to add that when the word was used in reference to the colony, it was repeated three times.
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