The royal couple appeared calm during the protest and the King spoke quietly with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese while Thorpe was escorted out of the Great Hall of Parliament House.
Talking to Indigenous leaders has been a regular part of the King’s meetings over the years – including one on Wednesday when he was reunited with Brazilian indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire of the Kayapo people.
King Charles was reunited with Brazilian indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire during a reception in London.Credit: Getty Images
The pair first met in the 1980s, when Metuktire fought against land clearing in the Amazon rainforest. Their meeting in London this week came ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Brazil next month, a key issue for the King given his longstanding support for action to reduce carbon emissions.
The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park now draws more than 250,000 visitors a year and is on the World Heritage List as one of the most important natural and cultural landmarks.
Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in 1976, allowing people to claim land where traditional ownership could be proven. The NT government resisted claims over Uluru, but the stalemate ended in 1983 when Hawke and his ministers decided to amend the act and transfer Uluru to the Anangu.
The gathering at the heart of the former British empire began on Thursday morning, local time (8.30pm AEDT) and did not emphasise colonial history.
The first non-Indigenous person to visit Uluru is believed to have been William Gosse, an explorer who was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1842 and led an expedition to central Australia in 1873. He named the site Ayers Rock after Sir Henry Ayers, who was premier of South Australia at the time.
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