The Facts

• King Charles III and Queen Camilla are on a six-day tour of Australia, the first visit by a reigning British monarch in 13 years.Amid an intensifying debate on slavery reparations, King Charles Friday said that "the most painful aspects of our past continue to resonate.” Ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, he said key issues can be discussed "with openness and respect.”

• During a speech at Parliament House in Canberra, Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe heckled the King, accusing him of genocide and demanding land be returned to Aboriginal people.Even as African and Caribbean nations seek reparations for the UK's historic transatlantic slave trade, the British monarch emphasized the need to "understand our history, to guide us towards making the right choices in future." He added that "none of us can change the past."

• The incident has reignited debate about Australia's relationship with the British monarchy and its colonial past, with some calling for the country to become a republic.In Apia, Charles, instead, focused on climate and development. However, other Commonwealth leaders, like the Bahamas’ Prime Minister Philip Davis, called the reparations debate vital, insisting that slavery had left “a deep, generational wound in our communities."