By Kat Wong in Canberra
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has vowed to keep telling the truth despite a Senate reprimand over her highly-publicised protest against King Charles III during the British monarch’s Australian visit.
“You’re not going to shut me down,” the Indigenous senator told reporters on Monday after the upper house voted 46-12 to censure her over her protest during a parliamentary ceremony to honour the King in October.
“I don’t give a damn about a censure motion – in fact, I’m going to use it for kindling.”
Earlier, government Senate leader Penny Wong claimed the Victorian senator’s actions sought to “incite outrage and grievance” and “create storms on social media”.
The censure signalled that Australian politicians should uphold standards of respect during visits by dignitaries, she said.
Senator Thorpe, in a protest that generated worldwide coverage, claimed the monarch had “committed genocide against our people” and urged him to “give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people”.
“If you want to condemn me for being a truth teller, then go for it,” she said after the Senate vote.
“I’m proud that I stood up against the king coloniser; shame that he didn’t take the opportunity to apologise.
“So I’ll do it again, I’ll keep doing it.”
Senator Thorpe’s former party, the Greens, voted against the censure motion with Senator Mehreen Faruqi calling on politicians to listen to the concerns of Indigenous Australians.
“The bubble of white privilege that encapsulates this parliament is a systemic issue,” she said.
“That’s why we are here today, debating a Black senator being censured for telling the truth of the British crown’s genocide on First Nations people and telling it the way she wants to.”
The Senate also voted to censure the United Australia Party’s Ralph Babet over his inflammatory use of hate speech.
Opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham said the words he had placed on the public record were “repugnant, abhorrent and have no place in proper, orderly, civil conduct”.
The two senators were made aware of the motions on Monday morning but were unable to vote in the chamber because their flights to Canberra were delayed.
Nationals senator Matt Canavan said he could not in good conscience vote for the censures, arguing both politicians deserved to be in the chamber.
“The government has brought this on in what can only be described as a kangaroo court-style, where the defendant is not even here,” he said.
Censure motions do not have any legal consequences but they are rare, and give parliamentarians the chance to formally express their disapproval of colleagues.
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