King Charles III now Australia’s head of state
King Charles III is Australia’s new head of state following the death of his mother the Queen, who is being mourned with an outpouring of tributes and community affection.
King Charles III is Australia’s new head of state following the death of his mother the Queen, who is being mourned with an outpouring of tributes and community affection for her more than 70 years of service as Australia’s monarch.
King Charles automatically became Australia’s head of state when the Queen died, but he will be formally named in the role in a proclamation ceremony at Parliament House on Sunday.
Charles has also become head of the Commonwealth, an association of 56 independent countries and about 2.5 billion people. For 14 of these countries, as well as the UK, the King is head of state.
Following an extended period of mourning for the Queen, thoughts will turn to Charles’s coronation. Seventy years ago, the process took 14 months, but it could be a lot swifter this time. There is no rule as to when a coronation has to be held.
The last three coronations all took more than a year to prepare.
High commissioners from the Commonwealth were involved on the committees that planned the Queen’s coronation. They will be involved again.
Commonwealth leaders were among those mourning the Queen on Friday. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had been reading news reports about the monarch’s ill health before going to bed. A “police officer shone a torch into my room at around 10 to five this morning ... I knew immediately what it meant”, she said. “I am profoundly sad.”
PNG Prime Minister James Marape said: “Papua New Guineans from the mountains, valleys and coasts rose up this morning to the news that our Queen has been taken to rest by God.”
Across Australia flags were lowered to half mast and federal parliament was suspended for at least a fortnight.
The Queen’s death triggers 14 days of events including a national memorial service and a national day of mourning. Anthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon, together with Governor-General David Hurley and his wife Linda, are due to head to London on Thursday ahead of the Queen’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, the date of which is yet to be confirmed but is likely to be Sunday, September 18 or Monday, September 19. They will be joined by Australia’s charge d’affaires to the UK Lynette Wood and her partner, bringing the official Australian delegation to six. Ms Wood will represent Australia at a series of formal events in Britain over the coming days in the absence of an appointed high commissioner.
Under Australia’s longstanding Operation London Bridge plan for the Queen’s death – which is synchronised with the UK’s plan of the same name – Friday was designated as “D-Day” and is followed by 10 days of official events.
The mourning period will be extended to an anticipated two weeks in Australia, with a national memorial service and a national day of mourning to be held when the Prime Minister and Governor-General arrive back from attending the Queen’s funeral.
At dusk on Friday, a 96-gun salute was sounded by the Australian Defence Force at Parliament House in Canberra – one round for every year of the Queen’s life – while the Sydney Opera House was illuminated in her honour.
Foreign diplomats and members of the public began to arrive at federal parliament and Government House in Canberra on Friday, and at the residences of state governors, to sign official condolence books. Online condolence books have also been established on the Governor-General’s and Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s websites.
Additional reporting: The times
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