King Charles to get £50k Sydney Opera House welcome in Australia despite huge snub

It has been revealed that the iconic Sydney Opera House will see its sails light up with a four-minute looping montage of pictures of previous royal visits to Sydney when King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive in Australia later this week

The iconic Sydney Opera House sails will be lit up to welcome the King and Queen to Australia amid a row over senior politicians refusing to greet the royals.

The world-famous landmark will be illuminated on Friday night with a four-minute looping montage of pictures of previous royal visits to Sydney. Charles and Camilla will tour Sydney and the capital Canberra after landing Down Under on Friday evening. The gesture, which comes at a cost of between £40-50,000 a night, comes after all six State Premiers controversially announced they would not join a reception in Canberra to welcome the King and Queen.

New South Wales premier Chris Minns, who ditched the meeting and is a republican, said it wouldn’t stop the royals being welcomed to the city. Mr Minns said it was important the King was warmly welcomed during his visit to Sydney.

He said the “primary objective” in lighting up the Opera House would be to focus on events taking place in the state capital. Last year, the New South Wales state government decided not to turn the lights on to celebrate the King’s Coronation.

Many public buildings and landmarks were lit up in royal purple to mark the Coronation, including Parliament House in Canberra, but the Sydney Opera House, which was lit up to commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth II’s passing in September 2022, was not among them. The government at the time described the decision as a “cost-saving measure”. The King and Queen will leave the country on October 23 to visit Samoa.

It will be the first trip to Australia by a reigning monarch since 2011, when Queen Elizabeth II visited Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth. King Charles visited Australia 16 times before taking the throne in 2022 after the death of his mother.

The monarch is jetting into the country amid a focus on his role as head of state, while the Australian Republican Movement has billed the visit the ‘Farewell Oz Tour’. The country held a referendum on becoming a republic in 1999, in which 55 per cent of voters were against, while more recent polls show Charles is actually more popular than ever.

The campaign group labelled the tour a “chance to wave goodbye to royal reign” and said it is time to reset the conversation about the future of the monarchy.

Its campaign features a rock-style logo showing Charles, Camilla and the Prince of Wales wearing aviator sunglasses and waving, beneath the words ‘Monarchy – The Farewell Oz Tour’. In contrast, Bev McArthur from the pro-royal Australian Monarchist League called the move ‘disrespectful’.

She said: “Regardless of your view of the royals, Charles is coming to pay his respect to Australia and our citizens. This speaks volumes given his ongoing cancer treatment, which is pausing to come here and he deserves to be afforded our respect and good wishes.” Ms McArthur also slammed the State Premiers for electing not to meet the King, saying they had behaved in a way “not befitting their office”.

Victoria’s Jacinta Allan, South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas and New South Wales premier Mr Minns claimed they have cabinet meetings to attend while Queensland premier Steven Miles said he was busy working on his election campaign. Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff is on a US trade mission and Western Australia’s premier Roger Cook simply said he has “other commitments”.