King Charles visit to Australia to be met by anti-monarchy protests
Australia is set to hold a referendum on breaking ties with the British monarchy
Protests against the monarchy will meet the King on his first tour of Australia as its head of state.
Charles and Queen Camilla begin a five-day visit to Australia on Friday, the King’s first long-haul overseas trip since his cancer diagnosis.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has a long-held aim of holding a referendum on breaking ties with the British monarchy and his country becoming a republic.
But the plans were put on hold after Australians over whelmingly rejected a plan to give greater political rights to Indigenous people in a referendum held last year.
The Royal visit will be marked by Graham Smith, chief executive officer of the UK organisation Republic, leading small symbolic demonstrations in the Australian capital of Canberra and Sydney next week.
During the visit Charles will meet colleagues Professor Georgina Long and Professor Richard Scolyer, named as Australians of the year 2024, in recognition of their pivotal work on melanoma, one of Australia’s most common cancers.
Mr Smith said: “I’m in Australia to talk about why the UK should ditch the monarchy and to challenge the royal PR machine.
“I’m not here to tell Australia to become a republic, but to talk to Australians and the British press about the growing republican movement in the UK and the huge failings of the British monarchy.
“The message is simple: Charles does not speak for us, he does not represent us, he should go home.”
Other highlights of the Australian visit will see the royal couple spending time in the capital Canberra meeting leading figures and paying their respects to the country’s fallen, while in western Sydney they will attend a community barbecue – a staple of Australian culture.
The King and Queen will later travel to Samoa for a four-day state visit and join world leaders who are taking part in a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which the monarch will open.
Charles, who is head of the Commonwealth, has held “pre-CHOGM” calls with a number of foreign leaders including the King of Malaysia, Julius Maada Bio, president of Sierra Leone, Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, and Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema.
Republic, which campaigns for an elected head of state, has also called for Commonwealth nations to contribute to the “true cost” of the monarchy which the organisation claims is £500 million a year for the taxpayer.
Official royal accounts released earlier this year revealed the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, which supports the official duties of the royal family, was £86.3 million in 2023-24.
Mr Smith said: “On a simple ‘user pays’ principle surely every country should pay for their own head of state. We can probably leave the smaller states out of it, but there’s no reason Australia, New Zealand and Canada can’t pay up.”
Following the King’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year, the overseas tour has been curtailed on doctors’ advice, with a visit to New Zealand dropped from the itinerary and other changes made to the programme.
The King will also pause his cancer treatment during the 11 days he is away from the UK.
Dr George Gross, royal historian and visiting research Fellow at King’s College London, highlighted the soft diplomacy deployed by the royals.
He said: “The fact that this tour is going ahead, despite the King’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, shows its importance to further cement the close ties and bilateral relationships of Australia and Samoa with the UK, all the more important given the geopolitical significance of the Indo-Pacific region.
“It is also clear that the planned meetings and engagements centre around many of the issues and causes championed by King Charles III and those of the Queen, from sustainability and biodiversity, to reading and literacy, as well as continuing the King’s work at raising cancer awareness.”