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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

King Charles’ first visit to Australia as monarch laid bare a lot of unfinished business.

Audio Excerpt - Lidia Thorpe:

“Give us our land back, give us what you stole from us! Our bones, our skulls, our babies….”

DANIEL:

Moments after the king sat down after finishing an address to parliamentarians and other dignitaries in the Great Hall in Parliament House, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe was escorted out after approaching the king while shouting “you are not our king” and “this is not your land”.

Audio Excerpt - Lidia Thorpe:

“You destroyed our land! Give us a treaty, we want a treaty and this is not your land!”

DANIEL:

It didn’t just bring home the fact that, despite a failed republic referendum in 1999, having an unelected and unaccountable head of state is still a concern for many Australians. It also highlighted that the more recent failed referendum on a voice to parliament, has far from settled any of the issues around truth, treaty and justice.

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno, on the demands from Australia and other colonies for justice and reparations.

It’s Friday, October 25.

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DANIEL:

Paul, Good morning, and God save the king.

PAUL:

[Laughs] Yes, God save the king.

DANIEL:

So Senator Lidia Thorpe's comments to King Charles during his visit here in Australia. They've made waves, but they were hardly surprising. We all know how she feels about the monarchy, don't we?

PAUL:

Yes, we do. And Thorpe's brazen disregard for protocol at the royal reception is, well, it's hardly surprising, given her often stated aim to draw attention to the injustices suffered by first Australians and by colonial dispossession and the so-called frontier wars that saw thousands of Indigenous men, women and children killed. Well, she's certainly got the whole world talking about these issues, even though she was condemned for her rudeness by the prime minister and senior politicians from both sides.

Senator Thorpe did say she put in a written request for a respectful conversation with the king about the plight of her people, which was ignored.

It should be noted she didn't interrupt the king, but waited until he had spoken, waited until he had completed his address and then she seized the moment of a lull in proceedings to stage a demonstration? And what a demonstration it was.

Audio Excerpt - Lidia Thorpe:

“You are not our king, you are not sovereign. You are not our king, you are not sovereign. You committed genocide against our people…”

PAUL:

She hit unresolved issues at the core of our national identity and democracy.

Audio Excerpt - Lidia Thorpe:

“Fuck the colonies, fuck the colonies…”

PAUL:

Thorpe is far from alone in seeing the structure of our constitutional monarchy and Aboriginal recognition as significant unfinished business. A treaty that she demands would be an ultimate recognition of the rights and dignity of dispossessed indigenous peoples denied to them since Captain Cook claimed possession of the continent for the Crown. And Daniel, it's not a surprise that the royal visit reignited these conversations. Indeed, the visit itself sparked a whole new discussion around a republic before the king even boarded his first class, Singapore Airlines flight out of London.

DANIEL:

So you've done a great job, Paul, of describing what the deeper issues are in relation to Senator Thorpe's comments. But broadly, what have been the reaction to her comments within the media and elsewhere?

PAUL:

Well, if the point of any protest is to draw attention to a cause and to get people talking. Well, Thorpe, she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. She scored numerous media interviews in Australia, radio and TV, as well as internationally.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter (CBC News):

“This Aboriginal senator calling out the king for Britain's treatment of her people…”

Audio Excerpt - Radio Host (Times Radio):

“That was the independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, making her feelings very clear. And Lidia Thorpe is with us now. Welcome to Times Radio.”

PAUL:

She even got an interview on the esteemed BBC.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter (BBC):

“I managed to ask her what she had done and why.”

Audio Excerpt - Lidia Thorpe:

“I wanted to send a clear message to the king of England that he's not the king of this country. He's not my king. He's not sovereign. We are sovereign. To be sovereign, you have to be of the land.”

PAUL:

Thorpe raised the issue of the crown being responsible for a genocide of her people. But what is incontrovertible is a number of studies have found thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by British troops and later by government forces and the so-called frontier wars to deliberately attempt to eradicate resistance to colonisation.

And her former Greens colleagues backed her. Their protest was to boycott the royal reception. Adam Bandt, the party leader, says they'll be pushing for a Truth and Justice commission to lay the foundations for a treaty. And we saw other Aboriginal leaders, for example, ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people Commissioner Vanessa Turnbull Roberts Well, she joined the chorus for support.

But Thorpe's protest also drew condemnation from some Indigenous leaders. Marcia Langton, who played a leading role in the Uluru statement from the Heart, said Thorpe's outburst was, quote, embarrassing and shameful, and she offered an apology to the monarch on behalf of First Nations people. Nova Peris, the former Labour senator who headed the Republican movement, said Thorpe should quit parliament if she holds the institution in such contempt.

Audio Excerpt - Nova Peris:

“Now she has said that she hates the colony F the colony, but she swears allegiance to the Queen accepts her assimilation. She's going into the Australian Parliament. But she didn't want the voice going into the constitution because that was an act of assimilation. So which way is it, you know?”

PAUL:

And Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Well, his comments were even more pointed.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“I think there’s a very strong argument for someone who doesn’t believe in the system but is willing to take a quarter of a million dollars a year from the system to resign in principle.”

PAUL:

Now, mainstream Republicans accept that the British monarch is the head of state, but argues strongly that he shouldn't be. Especially in light of the research of historian Jenny Hocking showing our constitution gives the unelected head of state powers that exceed the conventions of a constitutional monarchy. The Crown, according to these conventions, is required not to be party politically active in a way that disrupts our democratic process. But you'd have to say relatively recent history shows that this isn't always the case, and a dangerous, undemocratic precedent has been set.

DANIEL:

And that dangerous, undemocratic precedent all was. Of course the Whitlam dismissal, which was an, an event that Australians will never forget. But time has a way of creating distance. Do you think those events still colour how Australians view the king right now?

PAUL:

Well, probably not as much as they did, you know, a decade ago. But in King Charles we have a direct link to the dismissal and the palace's failure to caution Governor-General Sir John Kerr against his plan to deceive his Prime Minister.

Well, Charles, in answer to correspondence from the Australian Republic movement, told them that it's up to the people decide that he's a constitutional monarch and he takes his advice from his Australian ministers. But Charles hasn't always acted in this way, as documented in historian Jenny Hocking's book. She knows better than anyone just how involved Charles was in the sacking of Gough Whitlam. She was on the ABC recently discussing this.

Audio Excerpt - Jenny Hocking:

“Kerr describes this in several documents. It's not just the letters. He kept a journal in the 1980s where he reflected back on key conversations that he'd had both with Charles and with the Queen.”

PAUL:

And she's been more than four years fighting the National Archives to release the correspondence between the queen Charles's mother, the queen's private secretary, and the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.

Audio Excerpt - Jenny Hocking:

“The great upset is that there are hundreds more and I have been trying for the last three or four years to get access to them. And even though they are governed by conditions which say they should be open after 30 years, that is nearly two decades ago, they are still closed.”

PAUL:

Hocking says. Charles, in an extraordinarily improper letter, later told Kerr it was just months after the dismissal not to lose heart. Quote, What you did was the right and courageous thing to do. So while all. Royal visits throw some light on the issue of a republic in Australia and the role of the monarchy. Really, now that we have Charles as king. There's even more edge to it.

The royal couple celebrities as they are, even though they're old and I've got nothing against old people can tell you well they received warm welcomes from respectable cheering crowds. But nowhere near the size of enthusiasm myself and other school children showed when his mother first visited Australia as a monarch back in 1954. But this time with the first visit of a new monarch, when Charles and Camilla were greeted by the prime minister and opposition leader in Canberra, all the state premiers, well, they declined their invitations.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter (7 News):

“Victoria's Jacinta Allan: absent. South Australia's Peter Malinauskas: absent, saying "it's with no disrespect to his majesty". Queensland's Steven Marshall: absent; he's "got a bit on". New South Wales's Chris Minns: absent.”

PAUL:

Western Australia's Premier Roger Cook just vaguely cited that he had 'other commitments'. You'd have to say there's more indifference around the crown than ever before.

But going back to Lidia Thorpe's comments, it's a reminder that the British monarch is a world figure at the epicentre of post-colonial demands for an apology and reparations in many of the 15 constitutional monarchies still owing him allegiance and other former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. Issues that are sure to come up in the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Samoa.

DANIEL:

After the break - where to now for the republican movement?

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DANIEL:

Paul Anthony Albanese is spending even more time with King Charles and crying Camilla as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting or CHoGM kicks off in Samoa. Can you tell me about that meeting?

PAUL:

Yes, well the Commonwealth Heads of Government is an institution that the British monarchy see as vital to keeping them and Britain still relevant in the contemporary world. So what we've got in Samoa, where the current Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, is some key issues, not only reparations over issues like slavery, but also discussions on climate change topping the agenda. Pacific nations are looking to use the meeting to draw attention yet again to the existential threat of rising sea levels. Interestingly, the Pacific Island nations particularly have got a very strong ally in King Charles on the need for real action on climate change. Charles actually went to this in his formal address in the Great Hall in Canberra, so nobody can doubt that he takes climate change seriously and is urging Commonwealth leaders and indeed world leaders to take it more seriously than they have been to date.

Audio Excerpt - News Host (British):

“Labor MPs, at least some of them, are putting pressure on the prime minister to open talks about reparations to the Caribbean countries when he visits the commonwealth summit, which has just begun on Samoa.”

PAUL:

On the issue of reparations over slavery. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has ruled out any formal apology or reparations.

Apparently Starmer, who is a constitutional lawyer himself, sees a formal apology, opening up Britain to claims for billions of pounds worth of reparations. But still, it's clear that neither the king nor the British prime minister will be able to avoid this conversation at the meeting.

DANIEL:

And returning to Australia, Paul, the visit has obviously ignited a lot of discussion about the monarchy. So where is the Republican movement at the moment? It feels like we're actually moving further away from a republic, strangely.

PAUL:

Yes, Well, there was a bit of excitement amongst Australian Republicans when a new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had a ministry for the Republic. But when the voice referendum went down, he disbanded that ministry and he put the republic, as it were, on the long finger. His people tell me that it hasn't been ditched. It's just been parked for a while. Albanese feels that he suffered politically for the failure of the referendum when many people saw that he was distracted from their more pressing issues like cost of living.

When he was asked why he dropped the portfolio, he said he made it clear that there was only going to be one referendum this term and he hadn't made a commitment to another one. The historian Jenny Hocking hopes that should Labor win the upcoming election, Albanese will restore the Assistant ministry for a republic. But I suppose in Albanese's favour in terms of keeping faith in 2022, Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite made it clear that the success of the voice referendum would be the trigger for moving on to the republic in a second term. Republicans fear it could be another generation before the issue is revisited. Well, let's hope it won't be another generation before the issue of Aboriginal recognition and reconciliation is revisited and hopefully resolved.

DANIEL:

Well, at this rate, Paul, I think we can get at our little flags and welcome King William at some point. Thanks so much for your time.

PAUL:

Thank you. Bye.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today,

Supermarket Giants Coles and Woolworths say they will fight allegations they tricked customers with fake discounts.

Lawyers for both supermarkets have appeared in the Federal Court, after the ACCC launched legal proceedings in September claiming the companies misled shoppers by raising prices before later discounting them.

The supermarkets claim the cases against them are misconceived.

And, according to the ATO, more than 1.5 million Australians who would usually submit their tax returns without the help of an accountant have not yet done so.

The ATO is urging taxpayers to submit their income tax returns before October 31st, after which they may face financial penalties.

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

It’s produced by Cheyne Anderson and Zoltan Fecso.

Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

We are edited by Chris Dengate and Sarah McVeigh.

Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Our mixer is Travis Evans.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

7am is hosted by Ruby Jones, and myself Daniel James.

We’ll be back on Monday.

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