Prince Charles To Visit Vanuatu This Week

The RAAF will provide a VIP aircraft for Prince Charles to make a side trip to Vanuatu during this week’s Commonwealth Games visit, with the tab to be picked up by Australian taxpayers.

Malcolm Turnbull’s department confirmed the seven-day tour by the Prince of Wales and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, would be funded by the Australian government and include the cost of Charles’s travel to Vanuatu. The added expense will fire the hopes of republicans that his 16th visit to Australia will revive the push for constitutional change if the public marks Charles down against his personable sons, William and Harry.

The republic was yesterday thrust on to the agenda by former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s revelation that Charles was in favour of Australia severing ties with the monarchy. In comments made to The Sunday Times in London and provided to the Australian, Keating, ­reflecting on conversations he had with Charles while prime minister, said: “I have no doubt he believes that Australia should be free of the British monarchy and that it should make its own way in the world.”

Tony Abbott, a staunch monarchist, criticised Keating for his remarks. “Prince Charles would just want to do his duty and he shouldn’t be verballed by an ex-PM,” Abbott tweeted.

Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz said Keating’s comments were ‘just the latest example’ of the former prime minister ‘projecting his own views on others’.

Responding, Clarence House said Charles and the Queen had ‘always made it clear that they believe the future of the monarchy in Australia is a matter for the Australian people’.

The 69-year-old heir to the throne and his wife arrive in Brisbane tomorrow for a tour that kicks off with them mingling with crowds in the Botanic Gardens and attending the opening ceremony of the Games on the Gold Coast. Charles will break away on Saturday to fly to Vanuatu with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, ostensibly to inspect how the ­island nation has recovered from a cyclone in 2015, before resuming the tour in the Northern Territory.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet said the prince’s expenses were being met by the government, ‘consistent with past visits’ by the royal family.

Boeing 737-BBJ airliners in the RAAF’s VIP fleet cost $15,000 an hour to operate. Vanuatu is within range of the RAAF’s smaller — and cheaper to run — Challenger VIP aircraft, but it is unlikely to have room for the entourages of Charles and Bishop.

The prince’s nine-day trip to Australia in 2012 ran up a bill of $437,057, slightly less than the $474,137 taxpayers paid to host William and the Duchess of Cambridge in 2014.

(Source: The Vanuatu Independent News Magazine 03 April 2018)

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