Anthony Albanese has been accused of "insulting" and "colonising" First Nations mourning rituals, by suggesting Indigenous Australians were holding Sorry Business for Queen Elizabeth II.
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Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has also blasted the Prime Minister's decision to hold a national day of mourning on Thursday as "disrespect", urging Australia to undergo a reckoning with its colonial past.
Since Queen Elizabeth's death on Friday, the Prime Minister has labelled many lines of questioning insensitive, also insisting now was not the right time to discuss shifting to a republic.
But asked what place the views of the Indigenous Australians who cannot mourn her passing should have in public discussion, Mr Albanese accepted there were "a range of views" on the topic.
"One of the things about the culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is that Sorry Business plays a really important role," he said on Tuesday.
"It was certainly something that the Indigenous leaders were very, very conscious of. We should not underestimate the importance of Sorry Business and respect, as well.
"Now, just like other parts of the community, people will have different views."
Sorry Business is a cultural and community tradition, often including ceremonies and funerals, for many First Nations Australians mourning a death.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, a DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman, described Mr Albanese's comments as "terribly insulting" given the brutalisation of First Nations people under British rule.
"My first question was, 'Did he just colonise Sorry Business'? I had to listen to it again, and realised he did," she told ACM, publisher of this newspaper.
"To think that we are going to hold some kind of Sorry Business, or Sorry Business moment, for the colonising power, I think he's misread whatever he's been taught."
Senator Thorpe said scourges currently afflicting First Nations Australians - including deaths in custody, incarceration, and homelessness - were the "symptoms" of intergenerational trauma dating back to colonisation.
She described a national day of mourning for Queen Elizabeth as an "insult", saying major cities would be "shut down" by protesters on Thursday.
"We've been calling for [our own] day of mourning since 1938 ... our people have been subjected to the most horrific crimes against humanity from the colonising power," she said.
"We've had the frontier wars with thousands and thousands of Aboriginal people - men, women and children - put their bodies on the line to protect this country. They were murdered. They were massacred."
Senator Thorpe described the monarch as "the colonising" Queen Elizabeth when taking her Senate oath in August, before being forced to repeat the words without reference to colonisation.
She said a lack of education on colonisation, beginning with the education system, was a key reason behind the Greens' call for Truth-telling and Treaty to come before a First Nations Voice to Parliament.
