BY CAROLYN CASH
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will visit Australia in November as the Queen’s personal representatives during the Diamond Jubilee year.
Their Royal Highnesses will visit Longreach, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Sydney and Canberra where they will meet farmers, members of emergency services and young people during their busy six-day programme. The Prince and the Duchess will also attend the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, 6 November.
According to a source from Clarence House, the Prince and the Duchess will participate in many community-led celebrations of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, acknowledging the remarkable service of the Australian Defence Force. The Prince will renew old friendships and form new ties, as well as introducing his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall.
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell welcomed the announcement on Tuesday, 18 September 2012.
“This visit will excite a lot of people and it’s fantastic they have chosen to come to Sydney,” Mr O’Farrell said.
“The visit will attract worldwide attention and it will be a great opportunity to again showcase Sydney as Australia’s premier city,” he said.
Australian Monarchist League (AML) and Australians For Constitutional Monarchy (ACM) members are also eagerly looking forward to the royal visit.
This will be the Prince of Wales’s fourteenth visit. He visited in 2005, focusing on environmental initiatives, sustainable fishing policies and urban regeneration projects during his last visit in 2005. Prince Charles also visited in 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and in 1978 to attend former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies’ funeral.
Prince Charles attended Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop School for six months in 1966, but he returned for his first official visit as the Queen’s representative to attend former Prime Minister Harold Holt’s Memorial Service in December 1967. Holt disappeared whilst swimming at Cheviot Beach, and was presumed drowned.
This will be the Duchess of Cornwall’s first visit to Australia.
Program details and locations will be made public closer to the visit.
However, this isn’t the first royal visit to Australia this year. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge recently spent three hours at Brisbane Airport before boarding a Singapore Airlines flight bound for London on Wednesday, 19 September, after a successful tour of the Far East and the South Pacific.
LINKS:
Commonwealth Visits in 2012: http://www.thediamondjubilee.org/commonwealth-visits-2012#
