2024-10-24
6 分钟Andrew Mueller explains why Charles III's first visit to Australia as king has drawn the support of some, the ire of others and indifference from most. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Seventy years ago, King Charles III's mother made her first visit to Australia as Head of State.
It was quite a production.
When the 27 year old Queen Elizabeth II sailed into Sydney harbour, more than 1 million people huddled the foreshores or ventured out in small boats to watch the ship come in.
Sydney at the time had fewer than 2 million people living in it.
On QE2's 58 day tour of Australia in 1954, around 3/4 of the national population turned out to see her in person.
A near ecstatic communion between subjects and monarch by way of capture of the mood of the time.
It's over to the editorial page of Building, Lighting and Engineering, the House journal of the Master Builders Federation of Australia, February 24, 1954 edition.
What emotions spring to the overfilled heart as one thinks of this beautiful young girl Queen performing her royal functions with such matchless grace, dignity and charm.
All who behold her are thrilled by her beauty and touched by her humanity.
Right, O lads, settle down.
That same absolutely genuine we promise effusion went on some yards further, concluding as patriotic tears splashed on the typewriter keys.
With we her Australian people love her and revere her, admire her gallant husband the Duke, and look forward to watching their sweet little children, Charles and Anne, grow up under their guidance and example.
How times change, etc.
To understate matters hysterically, KC3's first visit to Australia as Head of state he has been a bunch of times before, including completing part of his education in Australia, has had little in common with the equivalent expedition undertaken by his mother seven decades back.
No crowds have heaved 20 deep along footpaths to catch a glimpse of the royal motorcade at the official welcome reception in Canberra.
Not one state premier even turned up.
And when he went to Parliament House, a senator yelled at him, you are not my kids.
You are not our kids.
The yelling senator was Lydia Thorpe, representing the state of Victoria, and who, it is fair to say on past form, will be by no means displeased by all the attention she has attracted to herself.
Senator Thorpe's overarching case is a reasonable one, that is that Australia's indigenous people, of whom she is one, had their country taken off them at gunpoint by people acting under the authority of Charles great great grandfather King George iii, and that things have been by and large rough on Australia's indigenous people since, and that perhaps some sort of formal treaty between colonizer and colonised might be a step forward.