Thousands of protesters have marched the streets of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra in opposition to the National Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth and "racist colonial imperialism."
The Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) in response to the government's swift action to declare the one-off public holiday.
While at Canberra's Parliament House, the likes of politicians and ambassadors gathered to commemorate Queen Elizabeth, others were hitting the pavement to stand against the day.
Brisbane's organised rally began at 11:00am, the same time which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese encouraged Australians to take part in a minute's silence for Queen Elizabeth.
Protest organiser and Gomeroi/Kooma woman Ruby Wharton said the lead-up to the public holiday felt similar to Invasion Day, on January 26.
We've been yelling for a day of mourning and demanding one for the last 200 years.
"[Australians] need to ask themselves why our Head of State doesn't even come from this country. And how the head of state got to this country, that's through murder, through pillaging, through [the] dispossession of lands and First Nations people and that's a continuing, ongoing project," she told NITV News.
"I don't believe in a Voice to Parliament until we can address the monarchy."
Ruby Wharton said her community comes together "in times of crisis" and takes "the opportunity to heal through action". Credit: NITV News: Tanisha Stanton
"It is hard to watch this country mourn a monarch who represents the destruction of our lands and our people," said Ms Onus-Williams.
"I think we need to remember that the violence that was her legacy, and that violence was genocide and colonialism, and that is the legacy that she left."
Fellow organiser Ronnie Gorrie said "we are not mourning. She was not our queen."
"Since colonisation we've had atrocities, past atrocities and still occurring to our people all around this country.
"The day the Queen died we were having a funeral for a death in custody in Victoria.
"Since the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody we've had no accountability at all in this country for any deaths in custody, which is outrageous."
Greens Senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe spoke during the anti-monarchy protest in Melbourne. Source: AAP / Joel Carrett
She explained: "This is what today is about, the Crown has blood on their hands. Our people are still dying in this country every single day."
Protesters also cut out the union jack of an Australian flag and then drenched it in fake blood.
In Sydney, Lizzy Jarrett spoke at the city's town hall and recalled the Day of Mourning protest in 1938.
Activist Lizzy Jarrett addresses protesters in Sydney. Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi
"And our calls since 1938 have been silenced. So today for their Day of Mourning and their call of silence we're just giving them what they give us, total disrespect.
"First Nations voices are going to be heard, we're going to be on the forefront. Our mere existence is resistance that the government, the colony, everyone's afraid of. We're not going to go away."
Activist Lynda-June Coe was also present and said it was disrespectful to expect Indigenous people to mourn the Queen.
"Once again it's asking me as a First Nations woman to censor how I feel, it's asking me to be silenced on the atrocities that our people have faced for over 200 years.
"It's asking me to be palatable to whiteness and to respect an individual and an institution which has essentially brought about a regime to exterminate us."
