Monarchists in Australia have accused state premiers of “insulting” King Charles and Queen Camilla after they declined to attend a welcome reception for the pair.
Charles, 75, who has visited Australia 16 times, has put his cancer treatment on hold to ensure the six-day trip can go ahead.
Alongside the Queen, the King will attend a range of events aimed at fostering relationships between communities.
The visit includes a reception in Canberra later this week, but the six state premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania have said they are unable to attend.
King Charles hit with ‘petty insults’ from Australia just days before royal tourGettyBev McArthur of the Australian Monarchist League said the premier’s actions were “insulting”.
She added: “They should just take off their republican hats, make the short trip to Canberra, say ‘Hi and thank you for coming to Australia’.”
Victoria’s premier Jacinta Allan said she could not attend because she had a cabinet meeting.
Her deputy, Ben Carroll, also refused the invitation, meaning Allan’s parliamentary secretary Nick Staikos will represent the state.
Jacinta Allan has declined to attend King Charles’s welcome event in AustraliaGettyQueensland Premier Steven Miles said he could not attend because he was currently working on his election campaign, while Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said he was on a US trade mission.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns also said they were attending a cabinet meeting.
A spokesperson for Western Australia’s premier Roger Cook said he had “other commitments”.
Bev McArthur told the BBC: “The failure of state premiers to attend the reception in Canberra is completely indefensible.”
Charles and Camilla will visit Australia and Samoa this month for a Commonwealth summitGettyShe accused them of “gesture-led politics” and said she remains unconvinced by the excuses from the regional heads of Government, adding it was “petty” and “inhospitable”.
Charles and Camilla are due to arrive in Australia on Friday.
They will be heading to Sydney and Canberra, where protests are planned in a nation recently branded the most “woke country in the world”.
It also comes as a new poll in Australia showed support for the monarchy remains high as the King set to embark on a historic tour of the country on Friday.
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King Charles and Camilla on Broadbeach on the Gold Coast in Australia in 2018Getty
The poll found one in four people have a more favourable view of King Charles than they did before he was crowned.
Just one in three thought Australia should become a republic, down on the 39.4 per cent who voted that way in the country’s referendum in 1999.
However, republican activities have been on the rise, as a statue of King George V was decapitated in Melbourne in June by vandals from “The Colony Must Fall”.
Also, in January, attacks on statues of Captain Cook and Queen Victoria before Australia Day sparked more outrage.