King Charles and Queen Camilla’s six-day tour in Australia cost £317,031, which is less than half the cost of his mother, Queen Elizabeth’s same day tour in 2006 and less than a quarter of her last one in 2011, it has emerged.
The King and Queen headed Down Under back in October for a six-day trip despite his ongoing cancer treatment.
It was his first trip to Australia as monarch since he ascended to the throne following the late Queen’s passing in September 2022.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the couple’s tour in Sydney and Canberra cost taxpayers more than £49,400 a day; however, the cost was significantly lower than that of previous visits by monarchs.
Charles and Camilla even took a commercial airline for part of his journey, from the UK to Singapore and back.
A spokesman for the department of the prime minister and cabinet in Australia told the newspaper that as of Nov 30 2024, the total cost of the King’s visit was £316,347.39.
The cost included £216,217.26 on travel, accommodation and meals; £58,945.44 on event management and hospitality; £17,646 for ground transport; and £23,542.70 on expenses including a national contribution to conservation project Greening Australia.
Meanwhile, the late Queen’s visit to Australia 18 years earlier, for the same number of days, took her to Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and the Commonwealth Games, which cost £716,774.
Her final trip to the country was in 2011, when she spent 11 days in Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, and cost a whooping £1,328,461.
King Charles’s trip Down Under was overshadowed by the outburst of a senator during his speech at Parliament House in Canberra.
Indigenous Australian senator Lidia Thorpe made headlines after she told the King that Australia is not his land and shouted :”You committed genocide against our people”.
Ms Thorpe had waited until the end of a landmark speech Charles gave to verbally attack him, saying: “You are not our King, you are not sovereign… Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us… Our babies, our people. You destroyed our land.”
In November, she was given a censure motion by her colleagues following the outburst.
But she has ripped up the motion and promised “I’ll do it again” as she’s completely unfazed by the parliamentary rebuke.
