By James C. Pearce
In October, King Charles III visited Samoa and Australia as UK’s monarch for the first time. In a closely watched trip, he and Queen Camilla visited Sydney and Canberra before traveling to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.
The trip was significant. It was the first time the biennial event was hosted by a Pacific island nation, and that King Charles III delivered the opening address as head of the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth has long struggled to prove its relevance. It aims to strengthen democracy and support economic development. However, it achieves very little. This was, therefore, a huge chance for the Pacific to show its clout and put climate change front and center, of which the King is a known champion.
It was also an opportunity for Charles III to increase his popularity amid growing Republican sentiment following Queen Elizabeth II's death.
Although Australians and Samoans were generally happy to see the king, several controversies dogged the trip. First, the trip almost did not happen. King Charles III is currently undergoing cancer treatment, which was put on hold for the trip. While the doctors cleared him to travel, the trip was shortened to safeguard his health.
Next came the sore spot of Australian politics. Australia’s center-left government is led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party. Albanese is a Republican who favors ending the constitutional monarchy. Some of his fellow Australians seemed ambivalent to their king when he arrived, with a few vocalizing outright discontent. Six of Australia’s seven state premiers snubbed the reception for the king’s arrival.
On top of that, Sen. Lidia Thorpe, an Aboriginal Australian, interrupted the king’s address to Parliament, accusing Charles III of genocide and shouting, “This is not your land; you’re not my king!”
Local monarchists were outraged. Bev McArthur of the Australian Monarchist League called it insulting. "They should just take off their Republican hats, make the short trip to Canberra, say 'Hi, and thank you for coming to Australia.’” The premiers denied “snubbing” the king, claiming to be on other government business. All sent a representative on their behalf, but the “royal snub”—as Britain’s tabloid Daily Mirror put it —went down poorly back in Blighty (as the British refer to mainland Britain). The Palace did not comment.
Behind the protests though, Australian support for the monarchy appears to be growing. A recent poll showed 45 percent support for Australia remaining a constitutional monarchy, compared to 33 percent support for becoming a republic, while the rest remain undecided.
The political will to break with the monarchy is also absent. Albanese has put a referendum on ditching the monarchy on the backburner. Jacinta Allan, the premier of Victoria State, also said that while she supports the idea of Australia becoming a republic, “it is not a top priority for me right now.”
One Cambridge-based Australian academic commented, “Charles is a nice bloke and comes across as well. That makes it hard for anybody to find a good enough reason to go through all the trouble of changing the constitution.”
In Samoa, things went better, but not smoothly. Most engagements were fairly mundane, including a visit to a mangrove forest and the opening of a new area in Samoa's botanical gardens named “The King's Garden.” That was when the king drank a narcotic during a ceremony proclaiming him “high chief.”
Queen Camilla also visited a church-run school and the Samoa Victim's Support Group. But things quickly got tricky again.
Described as a family of nations, most of the 56 Commonwealth members were former British colonies. Only 14 still have the British monarch as their head of state, including the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Canada and New Zealand.
Shaking the colonial legacy is tough. There were renewed calls for reparations, apologies and the return of stolen cultural treasures. These were the same demands listed by Indigenous leaders and politicians from various Pacific and Commonwealth countries in their May 2023 letter to the king. He declined.
As King Charles III opened the meeting, he stopped short of an apology. He said the "most painful aspects of our past continue to resonate," but he added that members of the Commonwealth "know and understand each other such that we can discuss the most challenging issues with openness and respect. It is vital, therefore, that we understand our history to guide us to make the right choices in the future.”
Both Buckingham Palace and Downing Street reaffirmed that the British government is against reparations. There is even less appetite among the British public. Downing Street did appear to open the door to other concessions, such as debt relief, restructuring financial institutions and “non-financial justice” to address inequalities.
Yet, two things were clear from the visit and looking ahead.
First, the future of the Commonwealth is in doubt. On the topic of Australia becoming a republic, the king has long called it “a decision for the Australian people” to make. It may not happen soon, but it seems inevitable. As a British diplomat serving in the Pacific remarked, “There are 14 countries left, and it’s one-way traffic.”
Second is what the trip achieved. In what will be a relatively short reign, this may have been Charles’ only visit to the Pacific and the last for a British monarch. Though no harm was done, many in the Palace and Pacific would have been hoping for better.
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