AUSTRALIAN Aboriginal Senator Lidia Thorpe branded British monarch Queen Elizabeth II a coloniser as she took her oath of office yesterday reigniting debate over the country becoming a republic. 

The Green Party politician lifted her right fist in a black power salute as she swore allegiance to Australia’s head of state in a formal ceremony. 

But she earned herself a rebuke from Senate officials after she inserted the word “colonising” as she repeated the oath of office taken by every Australian Senator. 

“I sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” she said. 

Ms Thorpe, a vocal supporter of the case for Australia to become a republic, was made to repeat the oath a second time by president of the Senate Sue Lines. 

“Sovereignty never ceded,” she wrote on Twitter after taking the pledge. 

Earlier this month she said that it was time for Australia to cut ties with the British monarchy. 

“Do we really need the colonisers dictating how we should run our country, when colonisation itself is dying? 

“What happened to ‘we are one and free?’ It’s time to break the chains and become our own nation,” she said.

The majority of Australians support the country becoming a republic according to the latest polls, but disagreement remains over how to choose any new head of state.

In 1999 Australians narrowly rejected such a move in a referendum which would have seen the country adopt a presidential system. 

Republican supporters blamed a flawed question which offered a particular model with a head of state appointed by parliament. 

The recent election of Labour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has once again seen the issue come to the fore with the appointment of Matt Thistlewaite as assistant minister for the republic.

He said that it was time for Australia to think about the future of the country after the end of the current monarch’s reign.

Mr Albanese said on Sunday that he remains in support of a republic, but that a referendum on the issue would have to wait until Australians vote on giving Aboriginal Australians an institutional role in policymaking.

“Our priority this term is the recognition of First Nations people in our constitution,” he said.