Greens senator Lidia Thorpe,a DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman,had to have two tries at her oath after initially referring to the “colonising” Queen.
Clad in black,Thorpe approached the centre of the Senate chamber with her fist raised in the air to make the affirmation of allegiance.
“I,sovereign Lidia Thorpe,do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising her majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second …” she started,straying somewhat from the card the clerk was holding for her.
“You’re not a senator if you don’t say it,” one of the others in the chamber called out,before President Sue Lines pulled up Thorpe and told her she was required to recite the oath exactly as printed. She did so,but the sarcasm was obvious to all.
Ahead of her first swearing in,in October 2020,Thorpe said her community wasn’t excited about that moment because she would be“swearing allegiance to the coloniser”.
Over the weekend,Assistant Minister for the Republic Matt Thistlethwaite said it was “archaic and ridiculous” that MPshad to pledge to serve the British royal family,particularly given they had to renounce any foreign citizenships to run for parliament in the first place.