Prince William and Kate Middleton turn backs on Australia
News out of Buckingham Palace means that we have even longer still to wait to finally see the Prince and Princess of Wales Down Under.
COMMENT
Good, bad. Up, down. Win, lose. It’s been a topsy-turvy, hurly-burly year in the world of William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, from him being accused of thuggery and resorting to fisticuffs by his brother Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex to her coronation outfit knocking Britannia off of her 350-year plus icon perch.
But, won’t someone think of their frequent flyer points?
In a year that has seen more history made in a matter of months than has been in some decades, it is notable just how dusty the Waleses’ British Airways Club Cards have become.
In fact, 2023 will go down as the year that couple has undertaken the least, or very close to the least, overseas travel. (That’s excluding the years that Kate was on maternity leave.) While the exact number is not known, Kate is unlikely to have spent more than three nights overseas this year at a maximum, first travelling to Jordan with William in June for Crown Prince Hussein’s wedding and flying to Marseilles for the Rugby World Cup in September.
Conspicuously absent from all Wales itineraries – the Commonwealth.
Now, the news out of Buckingham Palace would suggest we will have to wait even longer yet to see the Princess of Wales’ trademark blow-dry grace our shores.
This week it was announced that King Charles and Queen Camilla will undertake their first official tour to a Commonwealth country, Kenya, later this month. That in turn means that it looks like it will be this time next year when Their Majesties will be in the region for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa until we see their bunion and orthopaedic shoes on Australian soil.
And that in turn means the chances of the Waleses and their matching iPads arriving in Australia before Their Majesties’ and One’s personal gin and shiraz supplies is unlikely.
Or, more simply, Prince Louis will probably be practising for his L’s in one of Great Grandpa Philip’s old Land Rovers before we see the prince and princess in Australia.
A slight exaggeration, I admit, but you take my point. As a nation, our next King and Queen are showing about as much interest in visiting us as they are in taking up professional breakdancing, which is to say, none.
That’s pretty alarming considering our country has a Minister for the Republic.
What the hell?
Right now the Commonwealth, as the late Queen knew it, would seem to be just hanging on, like that one mustard suit that Princess Anne has been religiously trotting out since 1980. (Just to put that in context, it predates Charles’ engagement to the then-Lady Diana Spencer.) It’s been around for yonks, has had some good runs, but it’s looking markedly dated and tired.
So why aren’t William and Kate doing everything in their power to try and shore up the Commonwealth?
To some degree, it’s understandable that Charles and Camilla have yet to come to Australia to be forcibly marched to Taronga Zoo and hold a chlamydia-free koala as most visiting dignitaries are. They are in their mid-70s and Her Majesty hates flying.
However, the Waleses are another matter entirely. They are meant to be the peppy, youthful face of the monarchy, if you can say that about two people in their 40s, who look like they haven’t seen the wrong side of 11pm since their wedding reception. The prince and princess are supposed to be the exciting future of the crown, all big ideas, slick Instagram videos and their new-found penchant for selfie posing.
Except, that all that pep has not extended to their relationship with us, the far flung outposts of the Commonwealth.
Earlier this year William came in for a rightful drubbing for deciding to prioritise his annual seven-week holiday over actually turning up to support the England women’s team in the World Cup final being held in a country of which he will one day be Head of State. (I drubbed and I drubbed hard because there is no way that Willy would have stayed home if it had been the men’s team playing.)
Currently, the prince and princess have done as much for the Commonwealth as Harry and his lady wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex have done to bolster sales of Duchy of Cornwall oatcakes. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
It’s been a shocker of a couple of years for William and Kate on the Commonwealth front.
Last year, the prince and princess’ tour of the Caribbean nearly immediately earned ‘car crash’ status and only got worse from here, with a planned protest seeing their team tweak the schedule at the 11th hour, making it look like they were dodging anything but peppy PR photo ops. Kate was photographed shaking hands with people of colour through a metal fence, the optics of which were on par with the Titanic’s seaworthiness; and then the two of them got dressed up for a military review that looked like they were appearing in a lavish Netflix production about the dying days of colonialism.
If the prince and princess might be a little gun shy about venturing forth, out into these here Commonwealth wilds, well, that might be understandable. But, that does not excuse them from continuing to stay away, whether out of lethargy or nervousness or unwillingness to have to go barefoot on so many beaches.
If the prince and princess don’t pull their finger out on the Commonwealth front, then by the time they have matching thrones, the land over which King William V presides will be so reduced he will be able to fly from one end to another in under an hour. And with time left over to enjoy an egg and cress sandwich.
There are some arguments to suggest that the Waleses can’t visit any Commonwealth country before the King does, but, I fail to see Charles being that fussed by his son and daughter-in-law willing to spend 22 hours in the air to undertake a visit he does not seem eager to make.
Also, technically, the royal family undertakes diplomatic visits at the request of the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. But again, if William and Kate pitched up at the FCO’s door and said they wanted to pop down this way to gladhand Australians, strengthen ties and finally see a platypus, would they really face any opposition?
It’s not as if the FCO has been busy tapping them to undertake any other large-scale overseas or official tours.
William and Kate, as the one-day King and Queen of Australia, are letting all 25 million of us down right now by failing to show a jot of real interest. How long will they keep taking for granted that stalwart Commonwealth realms, like us? How long do they think we will keep quiescently going along with the idea of a hereditary monarchy? A notion that jars painfully with so many other fundamental, cherished values such as all people being equal?
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This month marks five years since the last marquee royal visit to Australia when two HRH turned up and played an absolute blinder – I mean, of course, Harry and Meghan in 2018. They came, they saw and boyo did they conquer.
So, Kensington Palace might want to begin looking into flights to Kingsford Smith pronto unless they want Australians to start thinking that those rebellious, monarchy-divorcing Sussexes might have been onto something when they chucked in the towel.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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