Victorian Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has made international headlines for her defiant gesture in parliament on Monday.
During the swearing in ceremony, Thorpe approached the dispatch box with her fist raised in a symbolic gesture of Blak resistance. When asked to declare her allegiance to the monarch, Thorpe inserted the word 'colonising' before Queen Elizabeth's title.
Speaking to SBS/NITV, the senator said her motivation for the impromptu gesture was "truth-telling".
"The Queen is a coloniser," said Ms Thorpe.
"It's a fact, it's truth. It's not something to get upset about... If people are hurt by truth, then we need to keep talking truth so we can get people on board and educate people."
Following the incident in parliament, the senator was forced to retake the oath, as any deviation from the approved wording would invalidate her position as a senator.
"I didn't feel good [having to retake the oath]," she said.
"It's against my religion... it's basically like kneeling to the coloniser, and saying I need to respect the power and the privilege and the stolen wealth that she's incurred from my country.
"It was demoralising... That's unfortunately the violent system that we live in, and that we've been oppressed by for over 200 years."
International headlines
The move caused an immediate reaction from within the chamber, with some senators audibly groaning, and has now garnered attention from outlets worldwide. CNN, CBS, the Washington Examiner and People Magazine all ran headlines on the incident, focussing on the senator's use of the word 'colonising'.
Ms Thorpe later took to Twitter, reposting a picture of herself with her fist raised and the caption "Sovereignty never ceded".
Responding to the event on Network 10's breakfast program, Narelda Jacobs declared the Djab Wurrung Gunnai Gunditjamara woman "staunch".
"I admire her for doing this," said the Whadjuk Noongar journalist.
"People have their beliefs and values that they bring in [to parliament]. Who's to say you need to swear allegiance to the Queen... when the Queen doesn't represent you?
"I completely respect Lidia Thorpe for doing this... what she has demonstrated is that her sovereignty hasn't been ceded by pledging allegiance to the Commonwealth."
The move also prompted backlash, with some observers taking issue with the legitimacy of the term "colonising" as applied to the monarch.
Such arguments were met with derision by Blak commentators online.
"So you want a queen for the colony but don’t want anyone calling her a colonising queen?" asked IndigenousX founder Luke Pearson on Twitter.
"I kinda feel like if white ppl [sic] didn’t want to be called colonisers they shouldn’t have picked ‘colonisation’ as their compromise term in between ‘settled’ and ‘invasion’ 20 years ago."
