King Charles Heads to Australia and Commonwealth Meeting
Time
Despite previous public engagements being canceled due to his cancer diagnosis, the UK's King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney, Australia, Friday evening to begin a royal tour of the Commonwealth.
While this is the Royal couple's first trip to the Commonwealth since 2018, it's the first trip to Australia ever made by a reigning king. His mother and predecessor, the late Queen Elizabeth II, made the trip during her reign, but no Monarch before her had.
The King was greeted on the airport tarmac, with a photo montage of Charles' previous visits to the Commonwealth displayed on the sails of the Sydney Opera Opera House.
The king's tour is a strategic move to reinvigorate the monarchy's relevance in the modern world. By focusing on critical issues like climate change, Charles is positioning himself as a global leader and demonstrating the monarchy's ability to address pressing international concerns. This approach could help shore up support for the royal family both at home and abroad.
The royal tour is an outdated tradition that diverts attention and resources from more pressing issues. Australia and other Commonwealth nations should be focusing on their own governance and tackling climate change through practical policies, rather than relying on symbolic gestures from a foreign monarch. The tour may also reignite debates about republicanism, potentially destabilizing political landscapes in visited countries.