King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney Friday for the first Australian visit by a reigning monarch in more than a decade, a trip that has reignited debate over the nation’s constitutional ties to Britain.
The iconic sails of the Sydney Opera House were lit up with images of previous royal visits to welcome the couple, whose six-day trip will be brief by royal standards. Charles, 75, is being treated for cancer, which has led to a reduced itinerary.
Charles and Camilla were welcomed in light rain at Sydney Airport by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New South Wales State Premier Chris Minns and the King’s representative to Australia, Governor General Sam Mostyln.
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Charles is only the second reigning British monarch to visit Australia. His mother, Queen Elizabeth IIbecame the first 70 years ago.
Although the reception has been warm, Australia’s national and state leaders want the royals removed from their constitution.
Monarchists expect the visit to strengthen ties between Australians and their sovereign. Opponents are hoping for a rejection of the idea that someone on the other side of the world is Australia’s head of state.
The Australian Republic Movement, which is campaigning for an Australian citizen to replace the British monarch as head of state, likens the royal visit to a tour of the entertainment industry.
WARC this week launched what it calls a campaign called “Say goodbye to royal rule with the monarchy: the Farewell Oz tour!”
ARM co-president Esther Anatolitis said royal visits to Australia were “kind of a show coming to town”.
“Unfortunately, this reminds us that Australia’s head of state is not full-time, is not Australian. It is a part-time person based overseas who is the head of state of many places,” Anatolitis told the AP.
“We say to Charles and Camilla: ‘Welcome, we hope you enjoy our country, your good health and your good humor.’ “But we also hope that this will be the last tour of a sitting Australian monarch and that when they return to visit us soon, we will look forward to welcoming them as visiting dignitaries.” she added.
Philip Benwell, national president of the Australian Monarchist League, which campaigns for the maintenance of constitutional ties between Australia and Britain, expects the reaction to the royal couple to be overwhelmingly positive.
“Something like the royal visit brings the king closer in people’s minds, because we have an absentee monarchy,” Benwell told the AP.
“The king’s visit sends the message that Australia is a constitutional monarchy and has a king,” he added.
Benwell criticizes the premiers of the six states, who declined invitations to attend a reception for Charles in the national capital, Canberra.
The prime ministers each explained that they had more pressing commitments that day, such as cabinet meetings and overseas travel.
“It would almost behoove the prime ministers to be in Canberra to meet him and pay their respects,” Benwell said. “Not attending can be seen as a snub because this is not a normal visit. This is the first visit by a king to Australia.”
Charles was drawn into the debate over the Australian republic a few months before his visit.
The Australian Republic Movement wrote to Charles in December last year requesting a meeting in Australia and for the king to take up their cause. Buckingham Palace politely responded in March to say the king’s meetings would be decided by the Australian government. A meeting with the ARM is not on the official itinerary.
“The question of whether Australia will become a republic is… a question for the Australian public,” the Buckingham Palace letter said.
The Associated Press has seen copies of both letters.
Australians decided in a referendum in 1999 to keep Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. This result is widely seen as a consequence of disagreement over how a president should be chosen rather than majority support for a monarch.
After visiting Sydney and Canberra, 250 kilometers apart, Charles will then travel to Samoa to open the annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
When his mother made the last of her 16 trips to Australia in 2011, at the age of 85, she visited Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne on the east coast before opening the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth , on the west coast.
Elizabeth’s first grueling tour of Australia, at the age of 27, took her to dozens of remote Outback towns; it is estimated that 75% of the country’s population came to see it.
Australia then had a racially discriminatory policy that favored British immigrants. Immigration policy has been non-discriminatory since 1973.
Anatolitis noted that Australia is now much more multicultural, with most of the population either born overseas or with a parent born overseas.
“In the 1950s, we didn’t have this global interconnectivity that we have today,” she said.
In February, Buckingham Palace announcement that Charles was being treated for a non-specific form of cancer, revealing that it was discovered while doctors were treating an enlarged prostate. After suspending his public appearances for three months, Charles resumed royal duties in April.
In March, Kensington Palace announced that Charles’s daughter-in-law, Catherine, Princess of Wales, had also been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer discovered during abdominal surgery. In September, Catherine announced that she had finished chemotherapy treatments, and “doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my goal.”
