King Charles and Queen Camilla are reportedly planning a trip to Australia next year, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, as His Majesty is due to be in Samoa for the Commonwealth Summit in October.
ITV’s royal editor Chris Ship speculated on social media that the monarchs could combine a trip to Australia with their visit to the Pacific for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on October 21, 2024.
An anonymous former diplomat told the Sydney-based publication: “King Charles is planning to visit Australia and New Zealand in October.”
If the trip does go ahead it will be the first time Charles has travelled to the antipodean nations since 2018, and the first visit since he became King.
The royals have come under fire for their lack of tours to Australia and New Zealand in the last few years, with Charles and Camilla making their first visit to the Commonwealth as monarchs in October this year, when they travelled to Kenya.
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Dr Cindy McCreery, Australian culture historian and associate professor at the University of Sydney, said that a royal tour of Australia could help promote the relationship between the Commonwealth country and the UK.
She told Express.co.uk earlier this year: “I do think that some visits by senior royals like the King and Queen or the heir to the throne, would help.
“I don’t know that we are really a priority, and I think that’s what Australians are kind of waking up to… that there’s so much else that the King is focusing on.”
Australian columnist Daniela Elser has also savaged Prince William and Princess Kate for not visiting Down Under recently, having taken Prince George there for his first royal tour in 2014.
She said: “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.
“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.”
