King Charles reveals how he feels about returning to Australia
(Picture: Toby Melville/Getty)
Charles has said he feels a ‘great joy’ at returning to Australia for the first time since becoming the King.
The reigning monarch is on a six-day tour of the nation with the Queen where the pair are planning to celebrate its people, culture and heritage.
It is the King’s first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.
The pair arrived on Friday evening, marking the King’s sixteenth official visit to the country, where he attended school for six months as a teenager in 1966.
During their first stop, they visited the Parliament of New South Wales, where the King gave an hourglass, handmade by the Goldsmith’s Centre in London, to the assembly.
The hourglass, which the King joked would be a ‘speech timer’ for the politicians, stands on a cedar base with the wood supplied from the King’s Highgrove home.
In a speech to the Parliament, he said: ‘With the sands of time encouraging brevity, it just remains for me to say what a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as Sovereign, and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long.’
(Picture: Dean Lewins/AP)
Earlier, Charles and Camilla were greeted at St Thomas’ Anglican Church by the archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and children from the church’s Sunday school who waved Australian flags.
The Queen was presented with a bouquet by the minister’s wife, Ellie Mantle, who asked if they had recovered from jet lag after the long flight to Australia on Friday. ‘Sort of,’ Camilla replied.
The couple then signed two bibles, including one that belonged to Australia’s first minister and chaplain of the First Fleet of ships that took criminals from Britain to the penal colony of Australia in 1788.
Every member of the Royal Family has signed the Bible, which belonged to Rev Richard Johnson, the first Christian Minister in Australia, on previous royal visits to Australia.
Ahead of their arrival, a number of senior Australian politicians stated they will not have time to see the Royal couple during their visit.
On Monday, they will meet with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese before attending a reception in Canberra.
But Premiers from Australia’s six states – New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania – confirmed they won’t be attending the reception for the King and Queen due to prior commitments.
While it’s unclear what the prior commitments are, Charles and Camilla’s visit takes place against a backdrop of growing republican sentiment in Australia and calls for ‘decolonisation’ and reparations to the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia.
During Charles and Camilla’s visit to the church, a small group of anti-monarchists and supporters of First Nations resistance to colonisation held a banner with the words ‘Decolonise’.
(Picture: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty)
They said that they wanted the King to support reparations for the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia.
Wayne Wharton said: ‘We are asking King Charles respectfully to begin the process of decolonisation, to join with the Australian government and negotiate with the Aboriginal people for reparations for the illegal settlement and colonisation of so-called Australia.’
Kanishka Raff, Archbishop of Sydney, officiated during the service which featured hymns and prayers and said afterwards: ‘This church has a family connection with His Majesty because his great grandfather as a teenage boy laid the cornerstone.’
He added: ‘It was lovely for this local church to be able to welcome the sovereign King Charles and Queen Camilla to join us in worship today. We are absolutely thrilled.’