There was, understandably, considerable consternation this week over the shenanigans of a possum-skin-clad Senator Lidia Thorpe cavorting around the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra hurling abuse at the King of Australia and his Queen, both of whom were seated, somewhat bemused, on a raised dais alongside various dignitaries including the Prime Minister. Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie has called for an investigation into the attention-grabbing senator and her juvenile stunt from a constitutional perspective, pointing out that Ms Thorpe is the first member of parliament ever to have so flagrantly breached her sworn allegiance to the monarch.

Many of our readers, too, have rightly expressed their alarm at Senator Thorpe’s behaviour, with numerous suggestions as to an appropriate punishment, some of which are publishable. Being disbarred from the Senate or having Lidia ‘cancelled’ in some way or other is obviously high on the agenda.

Perhaps. But monarchs of all flavours throughout our proud Anglo-Saxon history have been yelled at and accused of innumerable dastardly deeds and it is commendable that both the King and Queen appeared to suffer the verbal onslaught and theatrics with aplomb, grace and good humour. King Charles no doubt was reminded of a previous visit to these shores back in 1994, when, on Australia Day, a disgruntled subject – now, bizarrely, a successful practising barrister – fired two shots from a starting pistol to protest Cambodians being held in immigration detention camps and was promptly tackled to the ground by over a dozen burley men including then premier John Fahey. Less fortunate than that particular assailant was Henry James O’Farrell who in 1868 at the Sydney harbourside beauty spot of Clontarf took a pot shot at Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh. The duke was hit in the spine but survived, unlike O’Farrell, who ended up swinging from the end of a rope.

But back to Senator Thorpe, who has a long history of attention-grabbing stunts in pursuit of her cause and her vision. These stunts, which have included bizarre mock-coronations and the like, all support her obsessive desire to overturn the existing constitution and legal framework of this nation and replace it with what she calls ‘black sovereignty’, the explanation of which is self-explanatory. As such, Senator Thorpe has long been viewed as a charlatan and a hypocrite, for the simple reason that she quite happily takes a hefty salary, and numerous perks, from the taxpayers on behalf of the very system she wishes to overthrow. It should also be pointed out, as her father has done, that Lidia comes from as much, if not more, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic stock than she does indigenous ancestry.

But here’s where things get a little tricky. The pictures beamed around the world showed what was indeed the case: the King surrounded by a sea of flags, the majority of which are flags that support Senator Thorpe’s beliefs. Up on the dais were ten flags, four of which were the official national flag of Australia (with the Union Jack barely visible), three of which were the Aboriginal flag and three of which were the Torres Straight Islands flag. Harold Thomas, who designed the Aboriginal flag in 1972, has always maintained that ‘Aboriginal land rights’ is a key motif of his design. The bold black, yellow and red flag is above all else a political symbol in support of the idea of ‘black sovereignty’. The Torres Straight Islands flag was designed even more recently, and again, its primary purpose is to symbolise custodianship of the land and water of those idyllic islands. It was  the Albanese government that decided to have all three flags flown in tandem on all official occasions. Of the three, the two directly behind King Charles were… the two Aboriginal flags.

Thus, King Charles, either through ignorance or agreement, was symbolically agreeing to be viewed by the entire nation, and now the entire world, as representing the fundamental principle that Senator Lidia Thorpe actively promotes. In the same vein, the King partook in Welcome to Country ceremonies and even agreed to not use the term ‘walkabout’ for fear of offending indigenous activists. This same political cause – articulated in the slogans known to every schoolchild and university student as ‘sovereignty was never ceded’ and Australia ‘always was, always will be’ Aboriginal – is an article of faith to the entire left and even many on the centre-right of the Australian political spectrum.

Senator Thorpe is accused of being rude, aggressive, inappropriate and so on for her mouthy antics. But the truth is the real obscenity and offence to all Australians is not Ms Thorpe, but the way the flag of Australia has been traduced and violated by the Albanese government, by woke corporate Australia, by our captured institutions and by our entire education system. Forget about punishing Senator Thorpe. The Coalition must go to the next election committed to returning the Australian flag to primacy and to removing the unnecessary Welcomes and Acknowledgments to Country from all government institutions, reserved only for specific occasions.

Symbols matter. As Lidia knows.