By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Britain’s King Charles was embraced by an Indigenous elder after a welcome smoking ceremony on Tuesday in the birthplace of Australia’s urban Aboriginal civil rights movement in Sydney, a day after being heckled by an Indigenous senator in Canberra.
Charles met Indigenous elders at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence in inner-city Redfern, where he was embraced by elder Michael Welsh, and a woman introduced herself as a member of the Stolen Generation – a reference to Aboriginal children systematically removed from their families decades earlier. “Welcome to this country,” she said.
A day earlier, Charles was heckled at Parliament House in Canberra by independent senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe who shouted that she did not accept his sovereignty over Australia, and demanded a treaty for Indigenous people.
The fallout from Thorpe’s outburst has been mixed, with some calling her brave and others disagreeing with her approach …