Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe slams Queen as ‘coloniser’ while raising first in power salute and mocking oath

Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has delivered on her promise to shake up Canberra, referring to the Queen as a “coloniser” while sarcastically taking the oath of allegiance.

WA MP Sue Lines, who is the Senate president, made Senator Thorpe take a second oath as printed in the Senate after she mocked the Queen.

The First Nations senator walked into the Senate on Monday and appeared to give a black power salute by holding her fist in the air as she approached the despatch box.

“I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second,” she said while continuing to hold up her arm.

Senator Thorpe eventually recited the oath correctly and was sworn into parliament.

She later took to Twitter to declare: “Sovereignty never ceded.”

The outspoken Victorian MP has previously stated that her role as an Indigenous woman was to “infiltrate” the Senate and that Australian parliament had no permission to be here.

She raised concerns about colonisation while speaking to ABC radio in June, where she argued the Australian flag represented “dispossession, massacre and genocide” and accused the media of pitting her against Liberal Senator Jacinta Price.

“The colonial project came here and murdered our people. I’m sorry we’re not happy about that,” she said.

“If people are going to get a little bit upset along the way, well that’s just part of the truth telling. The truth hurts.”

In December 2021, she was forced to apologise to Liberal MP Hollie Hughes after she was accused of saying “at least I keep my legs shut” during a Senate debate.

Then WA Liberal senator Ben Small told the Senate that she “just made the most outrageous statement directed at Senator Hughes”, something that “ranks at the top” of “disgusting statements made in this chamber”.