King Charles Heads to Australia and Commonwealth Meeting
TimeOCT 12 2024
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 Charles' first as the 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.
While the King's visit will undoubtedly reignite the republic debate, there is still much to celebrate about the Commonwealth tour and its history. Charles, as his mother did before him, is setting out to meet thousands of loyal fans and engage in serious political discussions. Whether Australia becomes a Republic or not, there's still plenty of joy surrounding the historic event.
Australia has tens of thousands of years of non-British history, not to mention the newcomers who also call it home and want nothing to do with the monarchy. Instead of allowing Charles, his son, and grandson to rule over the country for the next hundred years, the Australian people should remove them from power and elect their own head of state.