Staunch republican Peter FitzSimons has taken aim at the monarchy by comparing photographs of crowds during Princess Diana’s visit to Australia and the king and queen’s most recent trip to Australia.
Charles and Camilla left Australia on Wednesday morning after five days of official engagements in Sydney and Canberra.
Around 10,000 people turned out to see the King and Queen at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday afternoon, hoping to shake their hands and engage in a brief conversation with Their Majesties.
Just hours after their meeting, FitzSimons, former president of the Australian Republican Movement, shared a photo of the huge crowd waiting to see the visit of the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana to the Opera in 1983, almost 40 years ago, alongside a image of those who want to see Charles and Camilla on Tuesday.
Diana and Charles’ trip to Australia in 1983 sparked mania: some 400,000 people came to see the royal couple in Brisbane. News photographer Jayne Fincher said she was “shocked” by the size of the crowd at Sydney Harbor for Princess Di, as a large crowd gathered on the steps of the Opera House.
By comparison, this week the crowds appeared to be significantly smaller for the King and Queen, at least in the photo FitzSimons shared, with the Opera House steps completely empty.
“As they say in the classics, it looks like a cast of dozens waiting for their king,” Fitzsimons said.
Staunch republican Peter FitzSimons has taken aim at the monarchy by comparing photographs of crowds during Princess Diana’s visit to Australia in 1983 and the king and queen’s more recent trip to Australia.
Australians were not allowed on the steps of the Opera House during this year’s royal visit.
One Australian responded to FitzSimsons: ‘I remember that tour, when Diana came, the whole country went crazy. Crowds wherever he went.
‘They weren’t there to see Charles. Public transport was a chokkas, I lived in Sydney at the time, it was absolutely huge, nothing like this week’s visit.’
However, many pointed out that Tuesday’s security measures meant royal fans were unable to climb the steps as they were for Princess Diana, making it an unfair comparison.
And no historical report gives an exact estimate of how many Australians gathered at Circular Quay that day.
One attendee at this week’s event said: ‘I was there today. The photo on the right (or today) does not represent a small crowd at all. The steps were separated from the crowd. The crowd looked toward the steps and the candles.
Other photos of the King and Queen’s trip to the Opera show large crowds snaking back toward the ferry terminal and through nearby streets.
However, the 1983 visit by Princess Diana and then Prince Charles was markedly different from the royals’ recent trip, largely to Diana.
Countless Australian fans were desperate to see the then 21-year-old Diana.
The entire Opera House was completely packed with fans desperate to meet the princess in March 1983.
The furore erupted when Diana arrived in Sydney in 1983.
Princess Diana and then Prince Charles are seen again in Sydney in 1988
It was also Charles and Diana’s first trip abroad together, as they were married for less than two years, and the fanfare about the princess largely overshadowed that of her husband.
During an interview with the BBC in 1995, Diana said that the clear preference for her over Charles during the tour made her “uncomfortable.”
“The pressure that the media put on the two of us as a couple was phenomenal and a lot of people misunderstood it,” she said.
“We were walking around Australia, for example, and all we could hear was, ‘Oh, she’s on the other side.’
‘Now, if you’re a man, like my husband, a proud man, do you mind if you listen to it every day for four weeks. And you feel depressed about it, instead of feeling happy and sharing it.
“With the media attention came a lot of jealousy, so a lot of complicated situations arose.”
The trip to Australia was portrayed in the hit Netflix series The Crown.
Large crowds also turned out to see the King and Queen this week.
Up to 10,000 people demonstrated in support of the King and Queen
Charles and Camilla stopped to speak to the public on Tuesday.
