King Charles III did not linger long at the luncheon put on in his honour, at the second scheduled event of his short Australian visit. And his gift to the gathering was a reminder of the fleeting passage of time.
There was a menu fit for a king, and very Sydney: chargrilled asparagus and olive dust; marinated octopus and squid ink wafer; barramundi and duck confit.
But the sovereign was gone before the first course. He addressed the gathering at NSW’s Parliament House, he offered an hourglass as a present, told lawmakers the “sands of time” would encourage “brevity”, and left within 10 minutes of his arrival in the hall, not to be seen again in public until Monday.
Earlier, King Charles and Queen Camilla began their day at St Thomas’ Anglican church in North Sydney.
It was technically the third day of their six-day tour of Australia – but apart from some handshakes on landing on Friday night, it was the public’s first chance to see the couple after a rest day on Saturday. The schedule has been designed not to overly tire the king, who is being treated for cancer.
Inside the church the bishop of North Sydney, Christopher Edwards, asked for world peace while protesters outside held aloft banners saying “Empire built on genocide” and “Decolonise”.
Hundreds of fans lined the street outside and waved Australian flags (the Australian Monarchist League had pledged to hand out thousands of them).
In an unplanned moment, the king and queen went to greet the crowds, with police scrambling to ensure they were protected.
Well-wishers thrust bunches of flowers into the queen’s hands, with the blooms then swiftly whisked away by aides. A supporter tootled on a flute, while chants of “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land” floated on the spring breeze.
The royals’ motorcade moved from there to Parliament House, where the king was heralded by trumpets and a voice crying “Hooray”. NSW’s legislative council, the first government formed in Australia, celebrates its bicentenary this year.
Charles was given a tour by the legislative council’s president, Ben Franklin, and the usher of the Black Rod, representing another ancient tradition Australia inherited from the UK (the usher was traditionally from an order of knights called the Most Noble Order of the Garter and served the monarch in the British House of Lords).
The king stopped to admire the Gumbaynggirr/Bundjalung artist Kim Healey’s Ngurra Jagun (homeland or home country) artwork commissioned for the bicentenary before taking to the stage.
“Having been with you for your 150th anniversary, I am delighted and proud to be able to return to the parliament of NSW in order to celebrate the occasion of your bicentenary,” he said.
“It is fascinating, I think, to reflect back to 200 years ago, and thinking about those times makes me wonder what that inaugural handful of members of the NSW legislative council would make of this parliament today, and of how this great state has progressed.”
He described how the original council members (King George IV appointed just five of them before the council was later expanded) were “squeezed into the old government house”.
“From that vantage point, regardless of their optimism, it was no doubt impossible to imagine what is now the vast and vibrant state of NSW, which has grown and evolved alongside this legislature, to reflect on the story of this institution and this state is to see the promise and power of representative democracy,” he said, adding that democracy had an “extraordinary capacity for innovation, compromise and adaptability, as well as stability”.
The crowd chuckled when he said it was “slightly worrying” that he had first come to Australia nearly 60 years ago.
In the spirit of marking the “passage of time”, he presented the hourglass speech timer to the parliament to “bear witness” on its next chapter. It brought more laughs, with the king poetically opting to turn the hourglass himself, then departing as the sand slowly ran through the bulb.
“With the sands of time encouraging brevity, it just remains for me to say what a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as sovereign and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long,” he said.
“So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for making me feel so very welcome. Thank you.”
And he was away.
From there, the royal tour returned to Admiralty House, the grand official residence of the governor general perched on Sydney Harbour, to meet the NSW governor, Margaret Beazley, and the governor general, Sam Mostyn. Mostyn told SBS television last week she didn’t think they’d be having long conversations about the potential for Australia to become a republic but instead wanted to “show him a modern Australia”.
This is Charles’s 17th visit to Australia. The itineraries of previous visits highlight how pared back this one is, with the king suspending cancer treatment to be here. He will only visit Sydney and Canberra, and only attend a handful of events.
In 1983 he brought his new wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, with him. It was not her first visit to Australia – in 1981 she had come to visit her mother, Frances Ruth Shand Kydd, who was living on a sheep farm near Yass. But it was her first as Charles’s wife.
Australia embraced the “people’s princess” but Diana said later that her popularity had sparked Charles’ jealousy and increased the marital tension.
An article in the Canberra Times about the 1983 visit said: “Yes the princess, on her first official visit to Australia, is of far more interest than her consort who after all comes here almost as often as Michael Parkinson or Rolf Harris (although of course he is far more welcome than them).”
The flag-waving crowds on this trip appeared equally delighted with both Camilla and Charles.
The royal pair will now go to Canberra. There will be a welcome to country and smoking ceremony, after which the king will lay a wreath in the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial. The couple will then greet the public on the way to the For our Country memorial, followed by a trip to Parliament House.
Later in the afternoon they will plant a tree each on the grounds of Yarralumla, then head to the Botanic Gardens where they will hear about the impacts of the climate emergency on flora.
On Tuesday they will return to the NSW capital for events including a barbecue in western Sydney and a public appearance at Sydney Opera House.
They will leave on Wednesday, when the king will fly to Samoa for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting.
