Indigenous Australian senator Lidia Thorpe refereed to the Queen as a coloniser while taking the oath of allegiance in the Australian Parliament on Monday, 1 August, The Guardian reported.
A Greens senator for Victoria, Thorpe was told to repeat the oath of allegiance after she was rebuked by fellow parliamentarians, one of whom was heard shouting, “You’re not a senator if you don’t do it properly.”
Thorpe performed her oath on Monday after she was absent from the parliament last week when other parliamentarians were sworn in.
According to The Guardian, Thorpe walked to the Senate floor to read the oath, which is printed on a card, with her right fist raised in the air and recited:
“I sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”
The word “colonising,” however, does not feature in the formal parliamentarian oath.
As calls and criticism begun to be heard across the house, Labour Senate President Sue Lines interjected and said, “You are required to recite the oath as printed on the card.”
“Please recite the oath,” she added, The Guardian stated.
Amid criticism from fellow parliamentarians, where one was reportedly heard saying, “none of us like it,” Thorpe turned to speak to a Labour senator before repeating the printed oath.
Following the swearing-in, Thorpe tweeted a photo captioned “sovereignty never ceded.”
According to Section 42 of the Australian Constitution, “Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives shall before taking his seat make and subscribe” the oath.
Moreover, under the Constitution, all senators and Members of Parliament must swear their allegiance to the Queen, her heirs, and successors before they sit in parliament.
The Guardian quoted Thorpe, who said that she stood in parliament “to question the illegitimate occupation of the colonial system in this country.”
(With inputs from The Guardian.)
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