Charles and Camilla jet out after a low-key inspection of the colony reputed to have cost taxpayers $500,000, probably a modest estimate of the true costs. Similar to their 2012 visit, they attended\u00a0highly stage-managed events indulging their interests and\u00a0mixing with people\u00a0like themselves.\u00a0Crowds were very small indeed. It was not edifying to see primary school children bussed to vantage points behind crowd-control fences in South Australia, waving flags with prominent Union Jacks.\u00a0There were two rest days without public engagements after Sydney on 11 November where the royal pair were sprung pottering around the pool\u00a0in their\u00a0cozzies by paparazzi. Then the final two days in Western Australia were completely overshadowed by the events in Paris. While\u00a0our\u00a0Head of State\u00a0sent a short condolence note of two sentences to the French president,\u00a0her son and\u00a0our\u00a0next\u00a0King,\u00a0made a public\u00a0statement about the bombings beachside in Perth,\u00a0that looked and\u00a0sounded\u00a0slightly out of place. Our republican Prime Minister is to be congratulated for keeping his engagement with the royals to the minimum and making no\u00a0visible\u00a0fuss of them, leaving for a trip to Indonesia in the middle of their stay. This\u00a0made a\u00a0refreshing change\u00a0after Tony Abbott’s over-the-top treatment of royal visitors and gushing statements of praise and deference. The concept of royal visits\u00a0continues to be\u00a0worthy of\u00a0deep reflection. They are cringeworthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charles and Camilla jet out after a low-key inspection of the colony reputed to have cost taxpayers $500,000, probably a modest estimate of the true costs. Similar to their 2012 visit, they attended\u00a0highly stage-managed events indulging their interests and\u00a0mixing with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-17","wpcat-17-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}