King Charles and Queen Camilla’s brief visit to Australia on Friday will be his 16th visit to the country since spending six months here as a schoolboy in 1966.
Australians have been looking forward to it for months. There is certainly disappointment that, due to the King’s cancer treatment, it will not be a full royal tour and has been limited to just Sydney and the capital Canberra.
There is no doubt that the royal couple are very welcome. An opinion poll commissioned by republican Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers found that one in four support the monarchy, and Charles and Camilla personally, more favorably since the king succeeded our late queen two years ago.
Yes, Australian Republicans have tried to advance their cause. Former Australian Republican Movement co-chairman, activist and former Crystal Palace footballer Craig Foster made a point of showing he had been invited to the royal couple’s official reception in New South Wales by tweeting the invitation – to then to boast that he had rejected the king. and Queen by turning it down.
King Charles and Queen Camilla’s brief visit to Australia on Friday will be his 16th visit to the country since spending six months there as a schoolboy in 1966.
Due to the King’s cancer treatment, it will not be a full royal tour and will be limited to just Sydney and the capital, Canberra
So far so predictable. But shamefully enough, all six Australian Prime Ministers have done the same. Both have declined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s invitation to attend the Australian government’s formal royal reception in Canberra.
They all found convenient excuses not to attend, even though they were supposed to have been invited months ago. It is true that the Premier of Queensland is in the midst of an election campaign that he is likely to lose, and the Premier of New South Wales is accompanying the King in Sydney.
But the others? Too busy with trade missions and cabinet meetings, while the Prime Minister of Western Australia could only claim to have ‘other commitments’.
The worst offender is Victoria’s leader, a mediocre artist named Jacinta Allan. Before she became prime minister last year, Allan was the minister who bungled the state’s successful bid for the 2026 Commonwealth Games and then backed away from holding them – and had to pay out almost £104 million to Glasgow to take over.
It’s one thing for people like Craig Foster to snub the King and Queen (attention seeking activists). But it is unfortunate that state premiers are following suit, not least because they have sworn to be ‘faithful and faithful’ to the monarch.
All but one of these state leaders belong to the Republican Labor Party. But the King is still their constitutional ‘boss’, and it is a common courtesy to meet the King and Queen, not only for their governments, but for all the people of the state they represent.
Such ideological rudeness to a royal visitor who is not only Australia’s head of state, but also personally courageous in making the trip despite his serious health problems, is grotesquely disrespectful.
What is even more difficult to understand is that, as the future of the monarchy in Australia appears more secure than it has for decades, popularity-hungry politicians are so out of step with public opinion that they are making vague excuses to avoid their loyal duty. avoid.
Such rudeness, so different from the grace and dignity of the royal couple, will not soon be forgotten by Australian voters. Charles and Camilla are better than all of them.
Terry Barnes is an Australian political writer and commentator.
