MELBOURNE – On Tuesday, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, touched down in Melbourne for their first visit to Australia since their official royal tour in 2018.
This visit, spanning four days, marks a more understated return to Australia after the couple’s 2020 decision to “step back” from their roles as senior royals and pursue financial independence while residing in California.
Describing their trip as funded privately, the Sussexes traveled business class on a Qantas Airways flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne. However, there has been some public discontent regarding the increased security expenses for police as the couple tours Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney.
Due to these security costs, the pair won’t experience the large public gatherings they did during their 16-day post-wedding tour in 2018 across Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Tonga.
Their children, Prince Archie, aged 6, and Princess Lilibet, aged 4, have not accompanied them this time. Interestingly, Meghan announced her first pregnancy while in Sydney during their 2018 visit.
Melbourne’s Herald Sun has labeled the current visit a “faux royal tour,” suggesting it aims to bolster the Sussex brand.
There have been criticisms of the couple attending paid ticketed events while in Australia.
The Sussexes reject criticisms that the visit is a publicity tour.
“The program is rooted in long-standing areas of work for the Duke and the Duchess, with a clear focus on amplifying organizations delivering measurable impact. The visit prioritises listening, learning and supporting communities rather than promotion,” the Sussexes’ office said in a statement.
There were also “a small number of private engagements” to “support broader commercial, charitable and commercial objectives,” the statement said.
Afua Hagan, a media commentator on the British royal family, said the news media typically portrayed the Sussexes as “villains.”
“This is a privately funded trip. To pay for that, they’re going to have to have some commercial interest,” Hagan told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“If they didn’t have commercial interest, the problem would be: ‘Oh my goodness, these people are leeching off the Royal Family and the taxpayers whether or not they’re making their own money. How dare they make their own money.’ They can’t do right for doing wrong,” Hagan added.
In Melbourne, one or both of the Sussexes are scheduled to visit a children’s hospital, a women’s shelter and a veterans’ art museum.
Harry will visit the Australian War Memorial in the national capital, Canberra. The couple will join an Invictus Australia sailing event on Sydney Harbor.
The 2018, the couple hosted the opening of the Invictus Games in Sydney. Harry founded the sporting event in 2014 where sick and injured military personnel and veterans compete.
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