King Charles III's visit rekindles Australia's debate on ending ties to the British monarchy

MELBOURNE, Australia -

King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday for the first Australian visit by a reigning monarch in more than a decade, a trip that has rekindled debate about the nation’s constitutional links to Britain.

The Sydney Opera House's iconic sails were illuminated with images of previous royal visits to welcome the couple, whose six-day trip will be brief by royal standards. Charles, 75, is being treated for cancer, which led to the scaled-down itinerary.

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• In Pictures: King Charles and Queen Camilla in Australia 

Charles and Camilla were welcomed in light rain at Sydney Airport by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New South Wales state Premier Chris Minns and the king's representative in Australia, Governor-General Sam Mostyln.

Charles is only the second reigning British monarch to visit Australia. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, became the first 70 years ago.

While the welcome has been warm, Australia's national and state leaders want the royals removed from their constitution.

Monarchists expect the visit will strengthen Australians' connection to their sovereign. Opponents hope for a rejection of the concept that someone from the other side of the world is Australia's head of state.

The Australian Republic Movement, which campaigns for an Australian citizen to replace the British monarch as head of state, likens the royal visit to a touring act in the entertainment industry.

The ARM this week launched what it calls a campaign to “Wave Goodbye to Royal Reign with Monarchy: The Farewell Oz Tour!”

ARM co-chair Esther Anatolitis said royal visits to Australia were “something of a show that comes to town.”

“Unfortunately, it is a reminder that Australia’s head of state isn’t full-time, isn’t Australian. It’s a part-time person based overseas who’s the head of state of numerous places,” Anatolitis told the AP.

“We say to Charles and Camilla: ‘Welcome, we hope you’re enjoying our country and good health and good spirits.’ But we also look forward to this being the final tour of a sitting Australian monarch and that when they come back to visit soon, we look forward to welcoming them as visiting dignitaries,” she added.

Philip Benwell, national chair of the Australian Monarchist League, which campaigns for Australia’s constitutional links to Britain to be maintained, expects reaction to the royal couple will be overwhelmingly positive.

“Something like the royal visit brings the king closer in the minds of people, because we have an absent monarchy,” Benwell told the AP.

“The visit by the king brings it home that Australia is a constitutional monarchy and it has a king,” he added.

Benwell is critical of the premiers of all six states, who have declined invitations to attend a reception for Charles in the national capital Canberra.

The premiers each explained that they had more pressing engagements on the day such as cabinet meetings and overseas travel.

“It would be virtually incumbent upon the premiers to be in Canberra to meet him and pay their respects,” Benwell said. “To not attend can be considered to be a snub, because this is not a normal visit. This is the first visit of a king ever to Australia."

Charles was drawn into Australia’s republic debate months before his visit.

The Australian Republic Movement wrote to Charles in December last year requesting a meeting in Australia and for the king to advocate their cause. Buckingham Palace politely wrote back in March to say the king's meetings would be decided upon by the Australian government. A meeting with the ARM does not appear on the official itinerary.

“Whether Australia becomes a republic is ... a matter for the Australian public to decide,” said the letter from Buckingham Palace.

The Associated Press has seen copies of both letters.

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Australians decided in a referendum in 1999 to retain Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. That result is widely regarded as a consequence of disagreement about how a president should be chosen rather than majority support for a monarch.

After visiting Sydney and Canberra, which are 250 kilometres (155 miles apart), Charles will then travel to Samoa to open the annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

When his mother made the last of her 16 journeys to Australia in 2011 at the age of 85, she visited Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne on the east coast before opening the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the west coast city of Perth.

Elizabeth's first gruelling Australian tour at the age of 27 took in scores of far-flung Outback towns; an estimated 75 per cent of the nation’s population turned out to see her.

Australia then had a racially discriminatory policy that favoured British immigrants. Immigration policy has been non-discriminatory since 1973.

Anatolitis noted that Australia is far more multicultural now, with most of the population either born overseas or with a overseas-born parent.

“In the ’50s, we didn’t have that global interconnectedness that we have now,” she said.