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King Charles III will be proclaimed Australia’s Head of State by Governor-General David Hurley today

King Charles III will be proclaimed Australia’s Head of State by Governor-General David Hurley today
  • PublishedSeptember 16, 2022

Australia’s Governor-General will today officially proclaim King Charles III, the first new monarch in 70 years, Australia’s new Head of State.

Key points:

  • Governor-General David Hurley will read a proclamation declaring King Charles III Australia’s new monarch
  • The proclamation will take place at Parliament House for the first time
  • Formal commemorations will continue in Australia for the next week

David Hurley will make the proclamation at Parliament House in Canberra as part of a formal half-hour ceremony.

The official acknowledgement of the change of monarch follows the United Kingdom proclamation at the Accession Council at the State Apartments of St James’s Palace, in London on Saturday night Australian time. 

Further proclamations will be read in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales on Sunday.

Other Commonwealth nations and Australians states will read separate proclamations. 

Queen Elizabeth and then Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth with then prime minister Robert Menzies in 1963.(Supplied: Prime Minister’s Office)

Sunday’s ceremony will be the first time a proclamation has been read at Australia’s current Parliament House.

The ceremony will include a band performing the Australian anthem and God Save the King, a version of the British national anthem not heard for 70 years. 

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Play Video. Duration: 6 minutes 35 seconds

Charles will have to put personal causes aside as King, one journalist says.

There will also be a Welcome to Country and Indigenous spiritual dance before the ceremony concludes with a 21-gun salute at 12:30pm AEST.

The national flag will temporarily be flown at full mast before being lowered to half mast in mourning of Queen Elizabeth II who died on Thursday, aged 96.

Crowds, mainly women and children, are in the hot sun on North Terrace in Adelaide waiting for the proclamation.

Crowds, mainly women and children, wait in Adelaide in 1952 for the Proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II to be announced.(Supplied: State Library of South Australia)

First proclamation in 70 years

The Australian proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II took place at Canberra’s Old Parliament House 

The governor-general at the time, Sir William John McKell, read out that proclamation on February 8, 1952.

A copy of the proclamation published in the Australian Gazette in 1952.

Australia’s 12th governor-general Sir William John McKell proclaimed Queen Elizabeth II Australia’s head of state in February 1952.( Supplied: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette)

That reading took place 16 years after the Queen’s father King George VI ascended to the thrown when his brother abdicated.

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Proclamation of King George VI(ABC Archives)

Australia has had 14 governors-general since the Queen was proclaimed.

Queen Elizabeth II made 16 visits to Australia during her 70-year reign.

Her son and heir King Charles III has already accrued the same number, including in 1966, when he was sent out to Timbertop — the famously rugged rural campus of Geelong Grammar School for two terms. 

Day two of commemorations

The late monarch had a special fondness for Australia, a respect to be honoured with more than a week of ceremony after her passing.

Canberra’s most prominent landmark has been lit up with projections of Queen Elizabeth II.

There have been several rotations of pictures and words displayed at the front of the building.

One displays a message in the late monarch’s own words: “Australia in the course of my lifetime has firmly established itself amongst the most respected nations of the world.”

On Saturday politicians and diplomats laid wreaths at the foot of a statue of the Queen, unveiled by Her Majesty in 1988.

A man in a suit lays a wattle wreath at the base of a statue of the Queen

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lays a wreath at Queens Terrace, Parliament House.(ABC News: Nicole Hegarty)

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