I was actually surprised that King Charles and Queen Camilla’s Australian tour was so brief? I thought they were supposed to be in Oz for several more days. They arrived late Friday, had a rest day on Saturday, only did two events in Sydney on Sunday (and Charles skipped out of a high-level lunch after ten minutes), then they went to Canberra, where they were protested by Lidia Thorpe in the Parliamentary chamber. Then on Tuesday, they were back in Sydney for a day of events. And that was it. The big Australian tour: barely two and a half days of events and appearances. I guess the palace really did lighten Charles’s schedule due to health concerns.
So, now that the Oz leg is over, Charles and Camilla are already in Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Charles did the formal greeting with Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and a police inspection, all at the airport upon his arrival with Camilla. I would assume he needed to rest after that.
Now that the Oz leg is over, will there be a wider analysis of how Charles and Camilla performed, and whether this is yet another colonialist flop tour? The British press has done Charles and the crown no favors here, as they bash Senator Lidia Thorpe and boot-lick the crown. From the Times of London’s analysis:
However, there was a third element that appears to have blindsided the Palace: the fight for indigenous rights, even though it is something that the King has spoken about for years. At the start of his speech at Parliament House in Canberra, he acknowledged his respect for “all First Nations peoples who have loved and cared for this continent for 65,000 years”.
Those close to the Palace will hope that the public will see the outburst by the senator Lidia Thorpe for what it is, a stunt designed to elicit maximum coverage.
It was intended to shock, which is the effect it appeared to have on everyone in the room besides the King and Queen, who took it in their stride. Those close to the King have sagely noted, not for the first time, that the loudest voice in the room seldom belongs to the wisest mind.
This was the palace pushback to one of the largest papers in Britain: that an Aboriginal woman – an elected official who requested a private meeting with Charles to address her concerns only to be turned down – is not bright, that she’s a drama queen, a stunt queen, that an old man who inherited a vast fortune knows more about Aboriginal rights. Also: usually, the Sussexes are the only ones blind-siding the palace, it’s fun that now Australian politicians are shocking Charles’s socks off!
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.