The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, said last week that there had been ‘preliminary discussions’ with Kensington Palace about a possible visit from the Prince and Princess of Wales.
But after the death of the Queen, King Charles is understood to have expressed a desire to travel to Australia, where he is now head of state, along with Camilla, the Queen Consort.
A trip to the key Commonwealth nation right at the start of his reign would be an opportunity to shore up support for the Monarchy amid growing republican sentiment.
Acknowledging his mother’s belief that a Monarch ‘must be seen to be believed’, the King has made it clear to aides he wishes to greet the Australian people, speak with indigenous leaders and visit people from different faiths.
An insider said: ‘People have been talking about Kate and William going out to Australia, and that had been a plan, but Charles is telling aides that he now feels he ought to visit himself. His Majesty is very proud of his long relationship with the country and wants to honour it.’
King Charles is understood to have expressed a desire to travel to Australia, where he is now head of state, along with Camilla, the Queen Consort (Pictured: The royal couple in Adelaide in 2012)
Charles has visited Australia 16 times. He first went out in 1966 as a schoolboy and spent two terms at Timbertop, the rural campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, and later recalled that he ‘loved it all’. He next visited with the Queen and Prince Philip, in 1970, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival.
In 1974, a year after his mother officially opened Sydney Opera House, Charles went to revisit his former school and was seen taking a dip on Bondi Beach. And he was famously kissed in the surf by model Jane Priest during a visit in 1979, as the then Prince, a young bachelor, swam at Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Western Australia.
When Charles and Diana went to Australia in 1983, they took along ten-month-old Prince William.
The country is also the scene of an infamous security scare in 1994, when a 23-year-old man was arrested for firing a starter pistol at Charles as he prepared to hand out Australia Day awards at a ceremony in Sydney.
The King and the Queen Consort’s most recent visit came in 2018, when they opened the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and visited Queensland, Brisbane, Cairns and the Northern Territory.
When Australia elected Mr Albanese in May this year, a poll revealed that 53 per cent of Australians disapproved of Charles becoming King. During the election campaign, Mr Albanese made it clear he did not believe his country should have a constitutional Monarchy. But his tone appeared to soften after the Queen’s death.
Acknowledging his mother’s belief that a Monarch ‘must be seen to be believed’, the King has made it clear to aides he wishes to greet the Australian people
When asked in an interview last week, Mr Albanese said that a move to oust the Monarch as head of state was ‘a discussion for another time’.
For King Charles, it could be a make-or-break tour. A spokesman for the King said that the Royal Family’s mourning period would continue for another week after the funeral, with travel plans to be finalised after that. Priority will be given to tours of key Commonwealth nations.
Prince William, the new Prince of Wales, cancelled a trip to New York this month where he was due to meet entrepreneurs linked to his environmental Earthshot project.
He is due to go to Boston in December, but he and Kate are first likely to be dispatched to the realms for whom Charles is King.
Kate and William first visited Australia and New Zealand in 2014, taking Prince George, who was then just eight months old. Crowds turned out in their droves during the ten-day visit, and some media commentators suggested the Royal guests had put the republican cause back by 20 years.