Before dawn today, a Qantas jet touched down in Melbourne from the United States. Aboard, flying commercial first class but hardly incognito, were world-famous philanthropists and former working royals, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The couple are in Australia for a week of ‘engagements’ in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
Even Australian monarchists who, according to opinion polls, still outnumber confirmed republicans, are unimpressed by the Sussexes’ pseudo-royal progress
Unfortunately, there was none of the famously fine weather that preternaturally followed the late Queen Elizabeth in her travels. In Melbourne today the weather gods ensured the city was cold, squally and miserable. The Sussex hearts would have been warmed, however, by the phalanx of police and hired security that greeted them on arrival, and followed them through the day. They were treated as the high-profile VIPs they’ve always known themselves to be,
A long way, certainly, from the publicly-funded security deprivation that Harry insists has kept his family away from visiting their British family.
The weather didn’t deter Meghan and Harry from embarking on a day of royal tour-style engagements. They visited Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, greeted by a sizeable and enthusiastic crowd of patients, families and staff. They worked the crowd like pros, Meghan especially making sure she was photographed with a young patient holding a sign for them. They toured the wards, bestowing the royal touch on young cancer patients – and incidentally gave photographers money shot after money shot.
Then Harry moved on to a veterans’ event, clearly at home amongst fellow veterans and promoting his Invictus Games. Meanwhile, Meghan visited a women’s shelter, bestowing her caring self on women scarred by family violence. She was turned out in stylish clothes and jewellery from Australian designers, her second clothes change of the day. ‘Californian cool’, purred the Age newspaper.
The Sussexes’ quasi-royal progress today was lapped up by the Australian media, albeit well down news websites. The couple would have been pleased that their immediate reception was warm and, as far the crowds went, they were big enough to fill television screens and revive memories of Meghan and Harry’s 2018 Australian visit as full-fledged royals: a visit that Meghan reportedly hated.
But if the pair felt a touch of love today and assume that Australians generally share that affection, they are mistaken. A petition entitled ‘No taxpayer-funded or official support for Harry and Meghan’s private visit to Australia’, garnered 45,000 signatures, and a very defensive response from the Sussex camp before they arrived. The trip is all privately-funded, they insist; but tell that to Australian taxpayers stuck with the cost of a police presence, and the costs of the arrangements for hosting the Sussexes at the Royal Children’s Hospital and the other quasi-royal events during their Australian visit.
And it hasn’t been lost on the Australian public that the Sussexes are here for several lucrative commercial events, with price tags for attendees that can only be afforded by commercial and social elites – photos with the couple extra, of course.
Above all, Australians haven’t forgotten that Meghan took Harry out of the bosom of the Royal Family, and Harry himself is nicknamed here as the ‘Ginger Whinger’. It also hasn’t been forgotten that Meghan, who talks so often about women’s empowerment, has her global public profile and platform simply because she married a particularly privileged bloke, not because she was once a moderately successful television actress. That the Sussex children have been deprived of contact with their extended Windsor and Markle families has also come up regularly when the Sussexes so often talk lovingly about the importance of home and family: Australians are no respecters of what they see as double standards,
Even Australian monarchists who, according to opinion polls, still outnumber confirmed republicans, are unimpressed by the Sussexes’ pseudo-royal progress.
Speaking to Melbourne’s Herald-Sun tabloid, Melburnian Barb Clough said she didn’t care for Meghan and Harry’s visit. ‘I’m not interested in Harry and Meghan,’ she said. ‘But if it was Kate and William, I’d be lined up and waving my flag.’ Clough is far from being alone in her thinking.
As for those turning out in Melbourne today, many, perhaps most, were attracted by the couple’s celebrity and notoriety rather than them being the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They’ve seen the Oprah interview and the Netflix series, and read Harry’s Spare – or serialised extracts from it. They understandably are curious about these famous faces that have launched a thousand media opportunities, but that’s probably as far as their interest goes.
To most observers, however, there’s a sadness to this visit. The attempt to recapture the aura of the Sussexes’ highly successful 2018 official visit, while attempting to play down their lucrative side hustles and their patent desire for media attention is, frankly, a costly yet pathetic cry for public love.
For most Australians, monarchists and republicans alike, the Sussexes have come and, in a few days, will go. They are welcome here as private American residents, but if they think they have a place in Australian hearts simply because they are Meghan and Harry, they are sadly mistaken.
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