Our media has been full of praise for King Charles and his handling of President Trump on the recent state visit. His mention of AUKUS has been hailed as a great moment for Australia.

On the contrary, the King’s visit merely underlined our strange constitutional arrangements, essentially a Clayton’s monarchy [or, as the advertisements said, “the drink you have when you’re not having a drink”].

Dennis Altman

Queen Victoria could not have said it better. Addressing the US Congress, King Charles referred to Australia as “a country of which I am also immensely proud to serve as Sovereign.”

None of the other fourteen countries which, along with the United Kingdom, retain Charles as head of state were mentioned, not, I suspect, a matter of great concern for the citizens of Canada, Papua New Guinea or Jamaica.

Charles was in Washington as an emissary of the British government, and his trip was reported with bated breath as an attempt to restore the ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. What it underlined for me was that we are a country without an effective head of state, although the Governor General exercises the powers of the King in his absence from the country.

It was striking that the only Australian at the state dinner for Charles and Camilla was billionaire Anthony Pratt: as far as I can tell, no official representative of any of his other realms and territories was present. The White House clearly is not interested in the bizarre situation that they were entertaining a head of state of multiple independent countries.

In the usual sycophantic style of our media when confronted with the Royals, the visit received massive and favourable coverage. The King’s two major speeches, to Congress and at the State dinner, were politically sophisticated and included subtle criticisms of the Trump Administration’s policies on Ukraine, climate change and democratic norms.

Most Australians would agree with the King’s sentiments. But he was expressing them as the sovereign of the United Kingdom, without any input from the Australian government.

Prime Minister Albanese has now ruled out any further attempts to alter the Constitution, following the defeat of the Voice. The position of an assistant minister for the republic, created in his first government, has now been quietly shelved.

The image of our absent sovereign—who has so far spent five days in Australia—remains on our coins and we require our Parliamentarians to swear allegiance to him, leading to an understandable outburst from Senator Lidia Thorpe in 2024. For practical purposes he is represented by the Governor General, and the current holder of that office, Sam Mostyn, is gracious, smart and engaged.

But unlike the British prime minister, who has no choice in his sovereign, the Governor General is the personal appointee of the prime minister. This contributes to the marked tendency over recent decades to see prime ministers adopt more of the ceremonial roles normally associated with a head of state.

When Scott Morrison was attacked for being absent from the country during the bushfires of 2022, no one asked where was the Governor-General. Yet it is precisely in moments of national emergency that a non-partisan head of state is expected to take the lead.

For most Australians the confusion around our head of state is largely irrelevant. We accept an ongoing anomaly, maybe even enjoy the legacy of nineteenth century empire, which means we also have state governors who directly represent the British sovereign.

Albanese’s guess that a republican referendum would fail is almost certainly correct: any proposal would be countered by the current deep suspicion of politicians and a reluctance to change something that barely impinges on our daily lives. As long as Donald Trump rules, any proposal that included the concept of a president, however limited their powers, would be defeated.

But there is one move that Albanese could take, and that is to institute a process for appointing a Governor General that is bipartisan, either through two thirds vote in both houses of federal parliament or support from state parliaments.

I would hope that such a process would have supported Sam Mostyn, who brings a breath of fresh air to Yarralumla. But it would mean that Australians might feel a greater sense of connection with the person who for all practical purposes is our head of state.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/05/charles-is-not-my-king/