Freedom of speech is still an Australian right – even if you’re a controversial Senator | Samantha Maiden

If all Australian MPs were held to the standards some want applied to Thorpe, Republicans would be kicked out of Canberra, writes Samantha Maiden.

Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe now occupies the wastelands territory of the political figure Australians love to hate.

Whether she’s yelling profanities at a group of men on the footpath outside a strip club – she was banned for life from Maxine’s Gentleman’s Club in Melbourne last year after an unfortunate incident at 3am on Sunday – or prancing around in possum fur in parliament, she’s a divisive figure.

Indeed her business model is banking on it because every time she conducts one of her protests, the bigger the outrage and the greater the media coverage.

But those suggesting she should be booted out of parliament for doing so are wrong.

She has a right in a democracy to express her views – as repugnant as some might find them – and those calling for her to be muzzled should try looking up the words freedom of speech in a dictionary.

As for Channel 7’s entertainment reporter Peter Ford who took to social media to call Senator Thorpe a “skank” before bravely deleting the remarks without explanation, the less said the better.

This week, Senator Thorpe let her protest flag fly across the world, with the BBC and CNN running images of her confronting King Charles III and Queen Camilla in the Great Hall in Parliament House.

Senator Lidia Thorpe during her now infamous protest as King Charles and Queen Camilla attended a Parliamentary reception in Canberra. Picture: Victoria Jones/Pool via Reuters

Thorpe – a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung Indigenous woman – turned her back on the national anthem, then walked towards the stage yelling “this is not your country”.

“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, before being ushered out by security.

“You are not my king!’’ she screamed, which sounds broadly accurate as it pertains to her personal ethos.

Speaking to Channel Seven’s Sunrise program the next morning, Peter Dutton said this.

“I think there’s a very strong argument for somebody who doesn’t believe in the system, but is willing to take a quarter of a million dollars a year from the system, to resign,’’ he said.

As compelling as this idea is to some – ‘if she doesn’t like it she should leave!’ – it’s also complete rubbish.

The notion that just because she’s not a fan of swearing an allegiance to the King that she shouldn’t be sitting in parliament is frankly preposterous.

Indeed the oath should be changed because it’s silly.

Does anyone seriously suggest the legion of Republicans in the Labor Party or indeed the Liberal Party would be happier to swear an oath to their own country?

At least Senator Thorpe is consistent. Two years ago, she was forced to redo the oath of allegiance after she initially described the Queen as a coloniser.

“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,” she said.

The word “colonising” is not in the formal oath.

Another senator was heard to say “none of us like it”. And there you have it. They don’t believe it either They are just saying it because they have to under the rules.

As Labor frontbencher Matt Thistlethwaite conceded, swearing allegiance to the Queen was “archaic and ridiculous”.

“It does not represent the Australia we live in and it’s further evidence of why we need to begin discussing becoming a republic with our own head of state,” he said. “We are no longer British.”

What was sillier was the suggestion she should censure her public statements. If the Senate wants to censure her for using a swear word in public, what next?

Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie during Question Time. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Consequences, according to National Senator Bridget McKenzie.

“Senator Thorpe, I think, is the only parliamentarian that I’ve ever known to disavow their oath of allegiance to our sovereign and their heirs and successors according to law,” Senator McKenzie said on ABC radio.

“So if it was happening in a court of law where you breached your oath, that’s contempt, that’s perjury, that’s a criminal offence,” Senator McKenzie said.

“And so I think there are some legitimate questions to be asked about this and what is the consequence of Senator Thorpe’s action from a constitutional perspective.”

Really? For saying King Charles is not her King? As constitutional law experts confirmed, parliament has the power to censure an MP, but not throw them out.

“Senator McKenzie seems almost to be suggesting that it is wrong for a parliamentarian to advocate for a republic, to argue for getting rid of the monarchy – which is something many people on her side of politics have done,” Monash University constitutional law professor Luke Beck said.

“Engaging in protest activity is not grounds for disqualification. Advocating for a republic is not a ground for disqualification.”

As repellent as some of Senator Thorpe’s public statements are – her decision to don a Hamas headband was a hell of a lot more offensive than getting shouty at King Charles – she has a right to express them.

That’s called democracy.

Originally published as Freedom of speech is still an Australian right – even if you’re a controversial Senator | Samantha Maiden