Lidia Thorpe is not one to adhere to respectability politics. She may work in the major house of respectability politics, but as she has been clear from the time she set foot in any parliamentary building, she grew up working class, came from a background of activist politics, and is incredibly proud of these humble, yet powerful, roots.

The screeching, therefore, about the fact that Thorpe’s brand of activism infiltrated a solemn function to honour King Charles is not only ridiculous, it is nonsensical. Several column inches of moralising “cease and desist” tripe has been allowed to flood the discourse, ironically penned by many who claim to be free speech warriors. Peter Dutton has called for Senator Thorpe’s resignation (again) while essentially claiming she is a hypocrite for being in parliament pocketing the pay cheque when she doesn’t believe in “the system”. Several Aboriginal figureheads have also come out to join in the condemnation.

If I were, like so many others, to believe what it is I have heard and seen since Thorpe took to the floor, I would be convinced she had broken through the barricades, thrown open the doors, stormed to the front and then proceeding to call his majesty everything under the sun. I certainly wouldn’t get the impression that she, as an Australian senator, attended an event she had been duly invited to, engaged in an act of peaceful resistance by turning her back as God Save the King played and then proceeded to........

© The Guardian