Ganesh Kendale
King Charles and Queen Camilla have received an official welcome at Sydney Airport, at the start of their visit to Australia on Friday night.
Australia’s governor-general Sam Mostyn was there to greet the royal visitors, along with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The PM will then have a meeting with the King and Queen at Admiralty House, the governor-general’s residence.
It’s the King’s first visit to Australia since he became the country’s head of state in September 2022.
The ceremonial welcome will also include children giving a posy to the Queen.
This will be the biggest trip by the King since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
His treatment will be suspended while he is in Australia and during the next leg of his trip in Samoa, where he will attend a Commonwealth leaders’ summit.
The last such official arrival by a monarch in Australia was in 2011, when the late Queen Elizabeth II landed in Canberra.
The visit by King Charles will include supporting environmental projects, meeting political and community leaders and a naval review in Sydney Harbour.
The visit has re-opened questions about whether Australia should be a republic with an Australian head of state.
Those supporting a republic have been selling T-shirts labelling the royal visit a “farewell tour”. But monarchists say it is “insulting” that none of the six state premiers will attend an official reception for the King in Canberra on Monday.
Ahead of the visit letters between Buckingham Palace and the Australian Republic Movement were revealed, in which palace officials repeated that whether Australia became a republic or remained a constitutional monarchy was a choice for the Australian people.
