When our King visits Oz, it’s the monarchy that should go ‘walkabout’

King Charles III has decided, or been warned, not to use the word “walkabout” during his five days in Australia next month. It’s a start.

“Walkabout” was his mother’s preferred term for greeting bystanders during a 1970 tour, a time when Indigenous Australians had been citizens for three years. “Walkabout” is deeply offensive to some, not all, but it is unquestionably from another time. When the King’s father asked Aboriginal dancers if they “still throw spears at each other” in 2002, however unintended the offence, his words were still out of time, betraying how the institution and the individuals representing it had become museum pieces.

The Queen on a “walkabout” in 2011 in Canberra with Governor-General Quentin Bryce and Prince Philip (behind).Credit: Andrew Ellinghausen

I’m not going to relitigate the republican case here. Twenty-five years ago, a referendum rejected the constitutional change to an Australian head of state. It was peak John Howard political craft. The then-prime minister, a committed monarchist, didn’t devote his campaign to pro-monarchy arguments. Instead, monarchists united behind the slogan “Say no to the politicians’ republic”, successfully splitting republicans into those who wanted any republic, those who wanted a specific model, and those who reacted viscerally against the word “politician”. The gist of it was, “If you don’t know, vote no”, which, in 1999, seemed like an effective but one-use-only appeal to the national rear-vision mirror.

Australians also had more pressing concerns than fiddling around with symbolic constitutional change. They were doing it tough after prices on all goods and services had risen by 10 per cent. Changing the head of state was too much of a niche concern. Maybe it could be saved for later, after the cost-of-living crisis had passed.

Our head of state remained English because Australians didn’t care enough to change it. The head of Canada’s monarchists’ association said, after our referendum, that the biggest threat to the monarchy was not republicanism but indifference. In Australia, indifference wasn’t and isn’t the threat; it is the monarchy’s strong point.

In a YouGov poll this year, strong pro-monarchy and pro-republic preferences were fairly evenly distributed, but both were numerically crushed by a majority who didn’t care. To the questions “Is the monarchy good or bad for Australia?”, “Do you think the monarchy should have more or less of a role in Australia?” and “Would you say you are proud or embarrassed of the monarchy?”, small sections replied yes or no, but the runaway winner in each case was “neither” or “no change” required. In other words: Couldn’t care less.

Illustration: Dionne GainCredit:

Indifference is the mandate our head of state brings when he visits us in October. Though there remains a strong minority of constitutional monarchists, indifference is why there is no groundswell for another referendum.

He would do well not to disturb that indifference, but the King’s visit will arouse curiosity for reasons that are contemporary and relevant. He will provide all-important content for the ravenous appetites of social and mainstream media. The monarchy has outlasted the print magazines with which it was once in a pact of mutually assured existence. While the technology of that alliance has changed, the commercial appeal of monarch-as-content has grown stronger. The King’s health is content. His family dramas are content. The revenge drama between the King’s son, Harry, and the Murdoch media is a gift that never stops giving for both sides. It’s all content.

The King’s coronation was a ratings winner on the scale of Origin deciders and grand finals. We came for the outfits and stayed for the glimpses of Harry and Andrew. Like Mardi Gras or Bridgerton, the costume drama was a compelling spectacle. With most aspects of life apparently in constant acceleration, it was somehow calming to settle into the royal amber. Nostalgia sells, and the Crown never runs into supply chain problems.

Then there was Prince Andrew, eighth in line to our throne. Watching Andrew during the festivities, I kept wondering about how if the King, his children and grandchildren went on a holiday together and some disastrous sinkhole swallowed them, we’d have the first King Andrew as our head of state. He would like it here. Australia is an island, and though it’s not owned by Jeffrey Epstein, it’s temptingly warm. Andrew doesn’t sweat, so a visit would be nice and comfortable.

Cheers to that: King Charles and Queen Camilla will seize “opportunities” to meet and greet Australians, but not to “walkabout”.Credit: PA

But I digress from the great digression. Charles may not be “my” King, in the sense that I support a republic, and he might not be “your” King either, but he remains “our” head of state, and most of us are not asking to make a choice.

He does have a choice, on the other hand, and this is what is interesting about the current monarchical limbo. Polls show Australians will be more inclined to move to a republic after the King dies, just as they were after the Queen died and as they will presumably be after the King’s son dies. Republicanism is a morbid movement, not wanting to hustle the elderly relative towards the grave, but it’s also empathetic, not wanting to rush to change when he or she does. So it waits for better times and another funeral, not realising that that next funeral will also be more valuable content.

King Charles wants to project an image of a modern man. In Australia, he will show his interest in science (visiting the CSIRO) and climate change (an as-yet-unspecified meeting). In the ultimate show of moving with the times, his “walkabouts” are to be called “opportunities to meet the public”. Nothing says “progress” like mealy-mouthed jargon.

If he really wants to be modern, he might consider what his mother did in 17 countries during her 70-year reign. She stood aside as monarch. Most were in Africa, some in Asia and the Caribbean. All, safe to say, were “doing it tough” with the cost of living. What they had, that Australia lacks, was a desire to move into a future with their own head of state. In Barbados, the Queen stood aside just three years ago in recognition of Britain’s slave trade, a sign that the monarchy had moved into the 21st century.

If Australians are too preoccupied with the cost of housing and groceries to care about changing the head of state, why shouldn’t the King show he really is up with the times and take the initiative? Why not campaign to self-abolish? Do British aristocrats desperately want to hang on to the headship of their Australian possession, or are they, like the majority of us, too caught up with their own affairs to give it much thought?

The King wants to be seen as progressive. By ditching terms like “walkabout” and discontinuing Prince Philip-isms like asking if the natives still eat each other, or if long-term British students in Hong Kong will end up “with slitty eyes”, or if Cantonese people will eat any four-legged thing except chairs, then progress is possible.

If Charles himself can divorce and marry another divorcee, updating the rules of relationships is possible. If we ever have a King Andrew, anything will be possible. The monarchy has shown it can move on from obsolete words. Next: move on from an obsolete relationship.

The Australian Republican Movement has a priceless opportunity in October: test how modern the King really is, and invite him to become its chair. Progressivism could have no stronger champion.

Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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