By Mark Kenny

A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.

Looming above the tut-tutting by establishment politicians over the rudeness of Senator Lidia Thorpe were their own incivilities. And Australia's.

The Victorian ex-Greens senator has made no friends in Canberra through her renegade style and trademark self-righteousness.

Nobody will forget Thorpe's wrecking role on the Voice. It showed contempt for the majority of First Peoples and their leadership.

Frontbenchers on both sides were quick to decry her lack of grace in launching a verbal tirade at the ageing and ailing King Charles III in Parliament's Great Hall.

Peter Dutton believes she should resign from Parliament. Dutton and fellow frontbenchers say she has breached the oath of allegiance she swore to the Queen, her heirs and successors.

Bridget McKenzie called her actions tantamount to "contempt" and "perjury" which is a "criminal offence".

Media pontificators agreed she had no business protesting at the event and had done the cause of First Nations People only harm. Some Indigenous community leaders lambasted Thorpe for once again making the story about her and for bringing the fight for Aboriginal justice into disrepute.

But, let's be honest, where is that fight, really? How has playing politely actually played?

Thorpe's personal hypocrisy is an easy enough target. With just 40,000 votes in 2022 out of almost 4 million in Victoria, she was elected to the Senate because the Greens won a quota.

Then she defected and campaigned against "meaningful" recognition of First Nations People through a constitutionally enshrined Voice, arguing it surrendered sovereignty to the colonising power. Yet she had personally ceded that status herself in accepting a Senate seat and in banking its comfortable salary. And while she insisted on being heard on Monday, she had moved purposely to deny a formal "voice" to others.

But for all that, she was not wrong in referring to land theft, murder, the kidnapping of babies, and the illegal retention in Britain of artefacts and human remains. There has been no apology nor recompense.

Neither were her abrasive tactics unreasoned in the context of a truth-telling and treaty-making agenda which has wallowed upon the defeat of the Voice.

This, to be clear, is where the broader nation's high-minded indignation also rings hollow.

Put bluntly, we, the 97 per cent, cannot have it both ways.

The great Australian majority blithely told the original inhabitants that a polite, electoral path of recognition was not for us - that prior ownership, historical genocide, and centuries of marginalisation did not warrant even that gentle gesture.

Having voted as a nation 60-40 against a proposal for a non-binding advisory mechanism, should we be surprised if the push for justice moves from mild to a bit wild? That from here, things become embarrassing and disruptive?

Frankly, a few heartfelt words shouted at a distant Monarch while we all play happy families is the least we can expect.

Was it all just meant to go away?

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.