Anthony Albanese welcomes the king and Lidia Thorpe is removed ...

Senator Lidia Thorpe removed from Great Hall reception

5 hours agoMon 21 Oct 2024 at 3:12am

The king and queen lay wreath and visit poppy display at War Memorial

6 hours agoMon 21 Oct 2024 at 2:32am

Arrest made at Australian War Memorial

6 hours agoMon 21 Oct 2024 at 2:22am

We will leave the royal tour coverage here for today.

Join us again tomorrow morning as we bring you all the highlights and details of day three.

The king and queen will be back in Sydney for a fleet review and community barbecue.

Earlier in the afternoon, the king and queen went to the Australian National Botanic Gardens.

They met with Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and branch head Dr Rebecca Pirzl.

The queen was also seen doing an activity with some school kids at the gardens.

And, mining mogul Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest spoke to the king towards the end of their visit.

The royal visit has again brought up conversations around the future of the monarchy in Australia.

Greens senator Barbara Pocock is a strong republican.

"We see many Australians who wish no ill-will towards the royal family, but are not interested in the royal family," she said.

Senator Pocock told Afternoon Briefing that the colonial legacy is a sad story for many First Nations people.

"[Indigenous Australians] want to talk about the truth of that history...a very important part of where we need to look at now," she added.

The governor-general, the king and the prime minister gathered for a ceremony in the blue end of the drawing room in Yarralumla where the king was shown the new Great Seal of Australia.

The king asked what the seal was made from and where and was told by the governor-general that it was made here in Australia from brass.

"Don't drop it," joked the king who signed two royal warrants to grant the Great Seal of Australia.

The Great Seal of Australia is used for important documents signed by the governor-general at Executive Council.

The first Great Seal was created in 1901 following its provision in letters patent signed by Queen Victoria and the seal used to feature the British coat of arms surrounded by Australian state shields. But in 1973 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Australianised the design to bring it in line with Australia's growing separation from the idea of being a British colony.

The new Whitlam seal featured the Australian coat of arms with the inscription 'Elizabeth II Queen of Australia'.

King Charles III's name does not appear on the seal that was revealed today instead it has just the Australian coat of arms and "Australia".

In the discussion Queen Camilla had with domestic violence advocates she heard from key sector experts as well as women with lived experience about the measures currently underway to try and end violence against women in Australia.

"Are these women prepared to come forward and talk?" asked Queen Camilla. "Do Indigenous people feel able to come forward?"

Tanya Hosch, executive general manager Inclusion and Social Policy, Australian Football League said sport had an important role to play.

The governor-gerneral said "Aboriginal women had fallen out of the system. There are hundreds of women over decades whose experiences are not recorded," she said.

Katie Kiss, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, and also a survivor herself, talked to Her Majesty about children being removed from their families.

While Jess Hill, journalist, author and advocate discussed the pervasiveness of coercive control .

"Perpetrators all study from the same handbook. It is terribly difficult to prove."

Twenty-one year old Conor Pall from Mildura, Victoria, was the sole male around the table. As a children's author and advocate Conor represents the rights of young people affected by family violence. He knows from personal experience how the voices of child victims are rarely heard in the justice system and is determined to use his lived experience as a male survivor to drive change.

Before the round table Rosie Battie said it was "great" that the queen was using the tour raise awareness of the issue.

Queen Camilla met with GIVIT, an online platform connecting donors with the charities that need them.

It's helped coordinate disaster recovery efforts in the 2011 Queensland floods, 2020 Black Summer bushfires and 2021 NSW floods.

The queen has been a patron of GIVIT since 2020.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has issued a statement saying she had tried to hand King Charles a "notice of complicity in Aboriginal genocide" before she was removed from a parliamentary reception for the royals.

"Today I was silenced and removed from the parliamentary reception when pointing out that the crown stole from First Peoples," she said in the statement.

“The truth is, this colony is built on stolen land, stolen wealth and stolen lives."

You can read more about her protest below.

What a whirlwind day, that day two of the royal tour was!

That's the end of the day of official events for the king and queen and we are working on getting you more pictures, video and information about their last few stops.

Returning briefly to the moment senator Lidia Thorpe interrupted the royal reception at Parliament House — here's a bit of context behind her shouts calling for a treaty.

Senator Thorpe has long been outspoken on her desire to see a treaty between the government and First Nations peoples. But what does that mean?

The Uluru Statement of the Heart, written by First Nations leaders in 2017, includes "treaty" as one of its pillars, referring to a process of agreement-making between Australian governments and First Nations peoples that would formally recognise their sovereignty.

In New Zealand, for example, Māori chiefs and the British Crown signed the Te Tiriti O Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

But when the British arrived in Australia in 1788, there were no agreements made with First Nations peoples, and many say sovereignty was never ceded.

During the debate over an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, one part of the Uluru Statement, Senator Thorpe argued that "truth and treaty" needed to be the first steps to "bring peace to this land".

At the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and branch head Dr Rebecca Pirzl greeted King Charles.

The gardens display the largest collection of Australian plants in the world.

The queen spoke with 10 children, five from Ainslie Primary and five from Margaret Hendry school who were doing activities with Australian native seeds.

Finn Hopkins-Weiss,12, explained, "The fire opens the seed pods and lets all the seeds out."

Ms Plibersek added: "That's why we try to manage the fires so they're not too extreme because the plants need it for regeneration."

The Margaret Hendry students invited the queen to join them in making seed pods that could be dispersed by the wind, but she declined, saying, "It would probably stick my fingers together."

Earlier today, senator Lidia Thorpe was escorted out of the Great Hall for creating a disturbance following the king's speech.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman says senator Thorpe's actions were "pretty inappropriate".

"I think that it alienated a lot of people," he told Afternoon Briefing.

"And, I think most of the Australian public expect that their members and senators behave with dignity — especially at these formal state occasions."

The king is due to arrive at the Australian National Botanic Gardens soon after visiting the CSIRO bushfire research facility.

We've just seen footage of the king looking at what they call the burnpit there, a controlled fire experimentation zone.

He split off from Queen Camilla who was visiting charity GIVIT.

They'll meet back up at the gardens for their last engagement of the day.

Where yes, you guessed it, more trees will be planted.

Earlier, during the parliamentary reception, independent senator Lidia Thorpe was escorted out of the Great Hall for creating a disturbance at the end of King Charles's speech.

The monarch had recently finished addressing the reception when Senator Thorpe, who was wearing a fur cloak and had been standing quietly during the proceedings, stepped out into the aisle and began yelling.

"You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us — our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people," she shouted towards the stage, where the king and queen were sat next to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, before she was escorted out of the hall.

"Give us a treaty, we want treaty," said Senator Thorpe, who is Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung.

You can read more about what happened and why here:

The king has just finished planting of two snow gum eucalyptus trees at Government House.

It's not the only tree he will plant today as he heads off to the Botanic Gardens to plant another.

Apparently, the king likes to shake the trees after he's planted them for health and good luck.

The queen is meeting with Rosie Batty, author Jess Hill, feminist activist Dr Anne Summers, AFL's Tanya Hosch, family violence victim and children's book author Connor Pall.

It's a subject that occupies much of Camilla's work in the UK and around the world.

She has been talking to victims of rape and sexual assault for more than a decade and according to sources, wanted to ensure she had the opportunity on this tour to hear about the work being done in Australia to eliminate the growing scourge of domestic abuse.

National Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services Forum CEO Kerry Staines hopes the queen's discussions around domestic violence focuses on Indigenous women.

"I think being the only First Nations people body specialising in family violence we are disappointed to not have an invitation or for any of our members," she told News Channel.

"I'm not sure who has attended or what the conversations have been, but we would have liked First Nations representatives to be able to talk about the national crisis unfolding."

The Great Seal of Australia is used for important documents signed by the governor-general.

The first Great Seal was created in 1901 following its provision in letters patent signed by Queen Victoria and the seal used to feature the British coat of arms surrounded by Australian state shields.

But in 1973, prime minister Gough Whitlam "Australianised" the design to bring it in line with Australia's growing separation from the idea of being a British colony.

The new seal featured the Australian coat of arms with the inscription 'Elizabeth II Queen of Australia' and no "Britishness".

The design and wording on King Charles III's new seal is being revealed at an engagement in Canberra later today when the king will sign two royal warrants granting the Great Seal of Australia.

What will be on it?….Watch this space.

The king and queen will attend a royal reception at a community barbeque in Sydney tomorrow, showing off fresh Australian produce.

Local cheesemaker Mike Cain is hoping to serve his raw milk cheese to the king.

"What we know about King Charles is that he is an avid enthusiastic supporter of the British cheese industry," he said.

"And he is particularly interested in regenerative farming and raw milk cheeses."

Melbourne resident Lynton Martin managed a second handshake with the king in as many days.

By his reports, King Charles has a “nice firm shake".

Lynton’s going back to Sydney for round three tomorrow when their majesties visit the Opera House.

Reporting with Jade Toomey