The April 12 Edition

Lidia Thorpe’s angry verbal assault on King Charles while he was on a state visit last October – yelling at him, “You committed genocide against our people!“, “You are not our king!” and “F--- the colony!” – was hard to watch. For millions of Australians, the optics were cringeworthy: the Victorian senator’s behaviour reeked of attention-seeking rudeness against a royal born more than 150 years after the First Fleet anchored at Sydney Cove. And yet Thorpe’s confronting spray – for which the Senate later censured her – raised some deeply uncomfortable thoughts around the raw truth of her words, of the long, shameful history of atrocities against Indigenous people. The reality is that many Australians see King Charles as a sovereign symbol of this historic oppression. Of course, it’s impossible to know exactly what went through Thorpe’s head in that confronting moment – how much of it stemmed from heartfelt passion and how much from self-aggrandisement. “As a subject, Lidia was one of the hardest people I’ve ever profiled,” journalist Melissa Fyfe told me of writing this week’s cover story. “I’ve never come across someone so hated and yet also admired. I could see that being Lidia Thorpe is no picnic – and there are good reasons for her tough-as-nails exterior.” - Acting editor, Greg Callaghan.