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

Images of Britain's King Charles III are seen projected on the Sydney Opera House on October 18, 2024, as the royals arrive for a six-day visit to Sydney and Canberra. David Gray/AFP/Getty Images

see more https://tinyurl.com/37p2ycb6 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.

Australian officials greet King Charles III and Queen Camilla as they arrive at Sydney Airport on October 18, 2024. Brook Mitchell/Getty Images 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.