After meeting defence personnel, they travelled through the countryside to arrive at Balmoral for the meeting with the King early in the afternoon – or soon after 10pm AEST on Saturday night.
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King Charles has spent this week at Balmoral, a family retreat for the royal family and a favoured home for Queen Elizabeth, after a busy period of diplomacy and meetings when US President Donald Trump arrived last week for his state visit.
The King hosted Trump and his wife, Melania, at a royal banquet and arranged for them to stay as guests overnight at Windsor Castle.
In a carefully crafted message in his address to the banquet, the King reminded Trump of the importance of the AUKUS defence pact between the US, UK and Australia – at a time when the Pentagon is reviewing the agreement.
“Our AUKUS submarine partnership, with Australia, sets the benchmark for innovative and vital collaboration,” the King said.
Albanese held his first audience as prime minister with the King, then the Prince of Wales, when he visited London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. They met again in May 2023, when the prime minister attended the King’s coronation.
In a more dramatic meeting, the prime minister hosted the King and Queen in the Great Hall of Parliament House last October, when Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe disrupted an official welcome with a protest over Indigenous sovereignty.
“You are not our king. You are not sovereign,” she called out, metres from the monarch.
Albanese, an advocate for a republic over many years, has played down any prospect for a vote on a republic in this term of parliament and side-stepped questions on Friday about the next term.
Asked on Friday if he believed Australia would have a republic in his lifetime, he said: “That’s a matter for the Australian people, but I respect his majesty.”
Given concerns about publicising any meeting before it takes place, he chose not to say more about the plans for Saturday.
“Protocol means that we’re not supposed to talk about these meetings before they happen, and our High Commissioner here will ensure that that occurs by halting the press conference if I talk about those details. So I’ll observe the protocols which are there.”
While Albanese has been asked several times about his support for an Australian republic and his loyalty to the monarchy, he went public in 2023 about his decision to swear allegiance to King Charles III at the coronation despite calls from the republican movement for him to remain silent.
He told broadcaster Piers Morgan at the time that he had sworn allegiance to the monarch 10 times as an MP in parliament and would do so again.
“Australians made a choice in 1999,” he said, referring to the referendum result which retained the constitutional monarchy with 54.87 per cent of the vote. “One of the things that you’ve got to do is to accept a democratic outcome.”
Albanese’s arrival in Balmoral came as Opposition Leader Sussan Ley lashed out at the prime minister’s travel schedule, accusing him of “swanning around” the UK on a self-indulgent trip that includes a speech at the British Labour conference in Liverpool and a forum on progressive politics in London.
Albanese’s arrival in Balmoral came as Opposition Leader Sussan Ley lashed out at the prime minister’s travel schedule, accusing him of “swanning around” the UK on a self-indulgent trip.Credit: AP
“Albanese is in the UK as the Australian Prime Minister, not the Leader of the Australian Labor Party – he shouldn’t be swanning around on the taxpayer dollar at Labour political conferences hanging out with his left-wing mates,” Ley said in a statement.
“What does it say to the people of the UK that the Australian Prime Minister is deliberately participating in domestic political events – that is not diplomacy it is partisanship.”
Questioning the vale of parts of the trip to Australian taxpayers, Ley said: “If the Prime Minister wants to turn an official trip into a personal detour to the UK Labour Party conference, Australians are entitled to know how much it is costing them and whether he intends to make any personal contribution to cover it.”
Princess Anne unveiled a new portrait of King Charles, showing him at Balmoral.Credit: Getty Images
Albanese made a point of meeting UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch during his first day in London but steered clear of any meeting with Reform leader Nigel Farage, whose populist and anti-immigrant right-wing party is surging in the polls.
Albanese will on Sunday become the first Australian Labor leader to speak at UK Labour’s national conference.
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