Among the thousand plus well-wishers gathered to greet King Charles and Queen Camilla at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra on Monday was Hephner, a nine-year old alpaca in a suit with a crown perched atop his fluffy white head.

Charles, on his 16th official visit to Australia and his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer, had finished speaking when independent senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe shouted that she did not accept Charles' sovereignty over Australia.

At a Parliament reception to welcome the British monarch, Lidia Thorpe shouted at Charles that he was not her king and should “give us our land back.”