King Charles visits Australia as the country puts its republic debate on hold

The last time Charles and Camilla visited Australia in 2018, local marriage celebrant Lesley Kerl wore a bright red dress and managed to get close enough to the royal couple to strike up a conversation.

Naturally, it was about tea – a subject close to the heart of many British people – as Kerl passed Charles, then prince now King, a gift of a teapot from people further back in the crowd of flag-waving supporters.

“I got the bug after I saw him that time,” said Kerl, who counts herself as a supporter of the British royals, but not necessarily a diehard monarchist.

Kerl will be in Sydney on Tuesday to try to meet the 75-year-old British sovereign again during his first tour to a Commonwealth realm since acceding the throne.

After Australia, King Charles will head to Samoa to join world leaders at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), his first as head of the organization.

This is the King’s first long-haul multi-country trip since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year, and his schedule has been lightened over the 11-day trip to provide rest times during a pause in his treatment.

Like any royal tour, there’ll be organized pageantry, but also predictable talk around dinner tables, on television and online about when Australia might cut ties with the House of Windsor.

The consensus seems to be that it won’t happen anytime soon – not least because of Australia’s poor record on passing referendums that are required for any change to the country’s constitution.

For the government, the defeat of the most recent referendum last October – not on a republic but to enshrine an Indigenous advisory group in the constitution – was a painful lesson in the expense of holding such a vote and the damage it can do in a country with sharply divergent views.

Hello and farewell?

The sails of Sydney’s famed Opera House will be lit up on Friday for the royal couple’s arrival, but some of the pre-trip conversation has been less than welcoming.

Republicans have rebranded the visit as the “the farewell Oz tour,” selling merchandise including T-shirts featuring the faces of the leading royals as if they were members of a rock band on the verge of breaking up.

“We’d love to wave goodbye to royal reign,” Nathan Hansford, co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement, told Reuters.

For Bev McArthur, a member of state parliament, such sentiments are “disrespectful.”

“This man is having cancer treatment. He seems to have put that on hold to come out to Australia, as part of the Commonwealth,” McArthur said.

She’s equally disappointed with the response of state premiers who reportedly declined invitations to meet the King and Queen at a royal reception due to diary clashes.

“I think they’re just unable to take the republican hats off their heads,” said McArthur, a member of the Victorian parliament. “The least we can do is have our leaders pay the respect that he deserves.”

Other pressing concerns

The monarch’s arrival comes around one year to the day after the failed Voice referendum, which dealt a crushing blow to many of Australia’s minority Indigenous population.

It would have enshrined an Indigenous advisory body in the constitution to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a greater say in policies relating to them.

Instead, it was voted down – and to many, the King’s arrival is another painful reminder of the dispossession, slaughter and attempted erasure of their people.

For others, the trip is an irrelevant distraction from a cost-of-living crisis as mortgage-holders struggle to find extra cash to finance loans inflated by high interest rates.

In a week where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was reported to have bought a 4.3 million Australian dollar ($2.9 million) clifftop beach house, talk has also turned to the lack of housing affordability.

For the average Australian, lauding a visiting monarch from a palace in a foreign land is not high on their list of priorities.

A notable trip

While he has traveled overseas since his diagnosis, such as popping over the English Channel to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy in June, this trip will be a significant moment for Charles.

“It is notable that he is visiting Australia in the year after his coronation, as this echoes the 1954 tour by his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II following her coronation in 1953,” said George Gross, royal historian and visiting research fellow at King’s College London.

The lack of travel to Commonwealth realms following his accession had raised eyebrows. The announcements of the first overseas tours to Germany and France were met with surprise. Those trips were followed by a visit to Kenya, which is a Commonwealth member but not a realm.

Charles is head of the Commonwealth organization – an association of 56 independent countries. Of those 14 nations, he is also head of state – in addition to the United Kingdom – though the role is largely ceremonial. Many had expected a stop in New Zealand might have been on the cards while he was in the region. However, while it had been considered, it was ultimately decided against following medical advice.

Aides have been working to ensure this long-haul tour is not too taxing on Charles. Each engagement will have been carefully handpicked to reflect the royal couple’s interests, and where necessary, have been modified to minimize any risks to his convalescence.

They’ll spend time in the Australian capital Canberra, where they will be welcomed by Albanese – who supports a republic – and other government leaders.

They’ll also pay their respects to the country’s fallen at the Australian War Memorial and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander memorial.

Charles will also meet with award-winning professors Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer – the current Australians of the Year. They’re working on a treatment for melanoma, one of Australia’s most common cancers, and Scolyer himself has been treated for brain cancer.

The King’s program also includes several environmental engagements, and the couple will attend a timeless Aussie ritual – a community barbecue. Australians will also get a chance to see the royal couple outside the Opera House.

Kerl plans to be there, once again wearing bright clothing to try to catch the King’s attention.

In some ways, she’s carrying on a family tradition. Back in the 1930s, her father traveled with his mother from Australia to the United Kingdom to see the coronation of King George VI.

“That’s the type of royal blood I came from. They went from Australia via a ship in those days,” she said.

Kerl’s one-hour train ride from the New South Wales coast will be a lot shorter – but she thinks it’s important to show solidarity with a figure she’s long admired from afar.

“I’ve grown up like with him and (Princess) Anne, and here he is finally and having his turn as King. So, I like to support him,” she said.