Albanese plays down chances of republic referendum after meeting with King

London: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed the chances of a referendum on a republic while he holds office, after returning from a private audience with King Charles at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands.

Albanese flew from London on Saturday morning (UK time) with his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, for a meeting with the monarch that was long-planned but kept largely confidential for days.

The King greeted Haydon and then shook hands with the prime minister, giving him a warm smile, before they sat for a discussion and shared lunch at the Scottish estate.

Albanese posted a photo on social media to confirm the meeting with a brief message: “An honour to meet with you today, Your Majesty.”

Later, he noted the King’s awareness of events in Australia.

“He is someone who is very interested in Australia, interested in the affairs of the world, and it’s always a pleasure to talk with His Majesty,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.

Asked whether he discussed the idea of a referendum on a republic, Albanese played down the prospect of any vote on the contentious change while he was prime minister.

“I think I’ve made it clear that I wanted to hold one referendum while I was prime minister, and we did that,” he said, in a reference to the vote on the Indigenous Voice two years ago. When asked to confirm there would be one referendum for the entire time he was prime minister, he said he was concentrating on the cost of living and practical policies.

The meeting with the King had been on the prime minister’s mind in recent days, and he mentioned it to leaders in London on Friday to highlight the importance of the trip.

“It will be quite a privilege to go up to Balmoral tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it,” he told Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch when they met on Friday at Stoke Lodge, the official residence of the Australian high commissioner, Stephen Smith.

The formal audience with the head of state marks a departure from days of political and policy debate during Albanese’s overseas trip, including his visit to the United Nations in New York and meetings with national leaders in London.

Some of those meetings are now clouded in political controversy after Opposition Leader Sussan Ley accused Albanese of “swanning around” on indulgent gatherings such as a summit of progressive political parties and their leaders in London on Friday.

Albanese and Haydon dined with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, Victoria, on Friday night at Number 10 Downing Street, where they were joined by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife, Diana. Albanese arrived for dinner with a four-pack of Willie the Boatman Albo Pale Ale, named after him by a brewery in the inner west of Sydney.

The next morning, Albanese and Haydon flew to the Royal Air Force base in Lossiemouth in Scotland, where they were given a traditional bagpipe greeting as they descended the stairs to the tarmac.

With strong winds sweeping across Scotland, the prime minister’s Royal Australian Air Force jet had to abort its first approach and landed on its second attempt.

After meeting defence personnel, they travelled through the countryside to arrive at Balmoral for the meeting with the King early in the afternoon (about 10pm AEST on Saturday).

After their visit to Balmoral Castle, Albanese and Haydon travelled to the nearby church of Crathie Kirk, where they met Reverend Kenneth MacKenzie and signed the guest book. Crathie Kirk is a Church of Scotland church that is often attended by members of the royal family when they are at Balmoral.

King Charles has spent this week at Balmoral, a family retreat for the royal family and a favoured home for the late Queen Elizabeth, after a busy period of diplomacy and meetings during US President Donald Trump’s state visit this month. He continues to undergo treatment for cancer.

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 United States, United Kingdom 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.

Those remarks were seen as helpful to Starmer as well as Albanese in their joint attempt to keep AUKUS on track, demonstrating the way the King can bring influence to bear in ways few others can match.

In a sign of the importance of Balmoral to the King, he chose the castle grounds as the setting for a formal portrait that hangs in the Scottish parliament. Anne, the Princess Royal, unveiled the portrait on Friday.

Albanese held his first audience as prime minister with Charles when he visited London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth 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.

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 Charles 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 Ley lashed out at the prime minister’s travel schedule, which includes a speech at the British Labour conference in Liverpool and a forum on progressive politics in London.

“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 value 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.”

Albanese made a point of meeting Badenoch, the UK Conservative leader, on 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.

While Ley has criticised Albanese for attending a progressive party gathering, other prime ministers have done similar things. John Howard, as prime minister, attended an event in the US in 2002 convened by the International Democratic Union, a global conservative group, and joined leaders such as Republican President George W Bush and UK Conservative MP William Hague, who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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