King Charles III ends first Australian visit by a reigning British monarch in 13 years

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — King Charles III ends the first visit to Australia by a reigning British monarch in 13 years Tuesday with anti-monarchists hoping his journey is a step toward an Australian citizen becoming head of state.

Controversy interrupted the visit on Monday when Indigenous independent senator Lidia Thorpe yelled at Charles during a reception that he was not her king and Australia was not his land.

Esther Anatolitis, co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement, that campaigns for an Australian citizen to replace the British monarch as Australia’s head of state, said while thousands turned out to see the king and Queen Camilla at their public engagements, the numbers were larger when his mother Queen Elizabeth II first visited Australia 70 years ago.

An estimated 75% of Australia’s population saw the queen in person during the first visit by a reigning British monarch in 1954.

“It’s understandable that Australians would be welcoming the king and queen, we also welcome them,” Anatolitis said. “But it doesn’t make any sense to continue to have a head of state appointed by birth right from another country.”

Anatolitis acknowledged that getting a majority of Australians in a majority of states to vote to change the constitution would be difficult. Australians haven’t changed their constitution since 1977.

“It’s tricky, isn’t it? We’ve got that hurdle, of course,” Anatolitis said.

Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey said an Australian republic was not something that Charles, 75, need worry about in his lifetime.

She said the failure of a referendum last year to create an “utterly innocuous” Indigenous representative body to advise government demonstrated the difficulty in changing Australia’s constitution.

“It’s