Australia, where King Charles will return to on Friday, is where the monarch became a man. In 1966, Charles had a memorable half-year at the Timbertop bush campus of Victoria’s Geelong grammar school, where, he once said, he ‘had the Pommy (metaphorically) bits bashed off me’. The following year, his first major adult engagement was representing his mother Queen Elizabeth at the memorial service for the drowned Australian prime minister Harold Holt. Since then, the now King has returned to Australia another 14 times, most recently in 2018. It’s clear that Charles has great affection for the country of which he once almost became governor-general.
This week, the bags are being packed in Clarence House for the King and Queen’s first tour of Australia as head of state, en route to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Samoa. It’s not really a tour: it’s more a two-stop visit to Sydney and Canberra, a scaled-down itinerary reflecting concern for the King’s health and stamina as he battles cancer. While his doctors agreed to pause his cancer treatment for the trip, the Times reported that two members of his medical team and a supply of the King’s own blood will be on hand, just in case.
Republicans aren’t being subtle in snubbing the royal couple
The King and Queen arrive in Australia on Friday. But if you think there will be enthusiasm for the royal visit on a scale of the late Queen’s first tour in 1954 – when it’s been estimated three-quarters of the then Australian population turned out to see her – think again.
Consistent with the low-key visit, and limited ‘opportunities to meet the public’ – known as ‘walkabouts’ until Australian political correctness kicked in for this tour – there simply won’t be that sort of mass enthusiasm. Indeed, the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) pressure group, known for PR savvy rather than achieving results, has been talking up the visit as ‘reigniting the republic debate’. The group even caught the attention of the British media when it released a private secretary’s standard reply to their letter to the King on the issue, saying that becoming a republic is solely a matter for the Australian public. The ARM is reinforced by a British republican nobody in Australia has heard of, Graham Smith of Republic UK, who plans to photobomb the King’s public events with his group’s yellow placards.
Republicans aren’t being subtle in snubbing the royal couple. ARM’s co-president, former Crystal Palace footballer turned left-wing activist Craig Foster, was invited to the official New South Wales government’s royal reception, but ostentatiously and crassly declined, tweeting: ‘Thanks…but no thanks. I look forward to being “in the presence of” our first Aussie Head of State. When we put our big pants on, as a country.’
Such puerile behaviour is typical of activists, but similar refusals by our state premiers is simply appalling manners. Heads of government of each state and territory were invited to the Australian government’s official reception for the King and Queen in Canberra. Not one accepted. Each of had some ‘I’m washing my hair that night’ excuse of other commitments.
The worst offender was Victoria’s premier Jacinta Allan. It was she who this year appointed a minister for men’s behaviour, and she who last year was the minister responsible for cancelling the hosting of the 2026 Commonwealth Games. Not only has she said she is too busy to meet the King, but she has added insult to injury by sending a junior parliamentary secretary in her stead. She should look to her own behaviour.
Yes, all but one are Labor party premiers, and instinctively republican. But given the equally Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese has the grace and courtesy to welcome Australia’s constitutional head of state, the provincial leaders, whose constitutions also include the Crown as the fount of government, should have done the same.
It appears, however, that left-wing politicians’ indifference to the King and Queen runs against the tide of public opinion. A pre-visit opinion poll, published in Australia’s News Corporation newspapers last weekend, found that support for the Australian monarchy actually has increased since the late Queen’s death two years ago. Almost half of respondents supported the monarchy, with just one third wanting a republic. Even fewer thought Australia ever would become a republic. It also showed approval for Charles and Camilla increasing since the King’s coronation, perhaps reflecting goodwill as the King confronts his cancer.
The survey indicates great interest in, and regard for, the Prince and Princess of Wales too, suggesting the monarchy is safe in Australia for at least another generation. But Australian love doesn’t extend to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, to the point most respondents thought the King need not strive to reconcile with his wayward second son.
The results of this poll are not contradicted by the low-key reception of the King and Queen’s visit. Rather than apparent apathy, it suggests how most Australians accept and are comfortable with the monarchy’s ongoing presence in Australia, and see no need to change anything. Like a successful long marriage, the Elizabeth-mania of 1954 has, over the last 70 years, mellowed into a relationship of easy familiarity between the Crown and the Australian people, making this a quiet family visit rather than a state visit full of Ruritanian pomp and circumstance. No wonder Albanese has quietly dropped his government’s junior minister for the republic.
In fact, the biggest local controversy of the tour is that they won’t be going anywhere other than Sydney and Canberra: the sort of interstate jealousy that gainsays the posturing of state political leaders. Most Australians will make the King and Queen very welcome here, and hope sincerely that their short visit will be happy and, in its own quiet way, glorious.
Comments