Republicans money in on King’s Australian royal go to promoting T-shirts

Aussie anti-monarchists are cashing in on King Charles III’s upcoming visit by flogging derogatory ‘merch’ mocking him and the Royal Family to raise funds for their campaign to oust him as head of state.

The Australian Republic Movement (ARM) have vowed to make the visit the ‘Monarchy Farewell Oz Tour’ – and are selling gig-style T-shirts at $34 (£18) each.

The black tops, sold in men’s and women’s sizes, show AI-style pictures lampooning Charles, Queen Camilla and Prince William in sunglasses and jazzy clothing waving to crowds.

There are also tea towels at $24.95 (£13) plus post and packaging and beer mats celebrating what the group hope will be the final royal tour of Australia, which starts on Friday.

The campaign is also accompanied by a YouTube campaign video called Monarchy: The Farewell Oz Tour, which says will be ‘in person, and with your money’.

Set to rock music, the narrator says: ‘Proudly brought to you by you… the Australian taxpayer. Don’t miss your chance to wave goodbye to royal reign’, before urging people to visit the ARM website to buy ‘unofficial tour merch’.

ARM insist that the campaign is ‘tongue in cheek’ – but critics have branded it cruel and ‘in very poor taste’, particularly because Charles, who has visited Australia 16 times, has postponed cancer treatment to be there.

Royal commentator Phil Dampier told MailOnline: ‘I’m sure they are trying to say that Charles won’t visit Australia again as King because they want to ditch the monarchy. But given his age and his cancer battle these T-shirts are in very poor taste’.

Australians voted to keep the British monarch as head of state in a 1999 referendum. Current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected with a promise of a new one – but has shelved it as his own popularity has fallen.

Meanwhile a new poll in Australia this week found that Charles III’s popularity had gone up since he became King. 

Mr Dampier said: ‘Personally I’m sure Charles will visit again when he is better, even if he is pushing 80.

‘Don’t forget he will want to visit New Zealand, which he is not doing this time, and if you are going all that way he will want to go to other parts of Australia he is not visiting this time.

‘So I see this as the first of two or three trips at least’.

Speaking to MailOnline the Australian Republic Movement (ARM) co-chair Nathan Hansford insisted the group wishes King Charles well – and that the T-shirts are not disrespectful – but he should not be the country’s head of state.

‘We empathise deeply with every person who has faced a cancer diagnosis, and we certainly wish the King well with his treatment, hoping he recovers and enjoys a long and healthy life’, he said.

‘However, with a reigning monarch visiting Australia for the first time in over a decade, we feel it’s the right moment to address some important questions Australians have about why our Head of State is not one of us. 

‘Our Head of State should be an Australian—selected on merit, equipped with the skills to fulfil the role, living here, accountable to Australians, and dedicated to serving our nation. We are a fiercely independent country, just like Britain, which has a King who advocates for them, supports their charities, and champions their trade. We need an Australian to do that for us’.

He added that all proceeds go to the ARM to be used ‘towards our core mission: working with Australians to educate and demonstrate to the government that there is a critical mass of support for our cause. We aim to secure a referendum and deliver a campaign that achieves a double majority “yes” vote for an Australian Republic‘.

Experts told MailOnline yesterday that a ‘petty’ and ‘mean’ band of woke Australians are determined to wreck King Charles’ historic visit this week – but the British monarch will be warmly welcomed by the average Aussie.

Charles, 75, who has visited Australia 16 times, has put his cancer treatment on hold to ensure the six-day trip can go ahead.

Yet six of Australia’s state premiers, five of them from the left-wing Australian Labor Party, are too busy with other commitments to welcome him at a special reception – even though the tour was organised months ago. 

These include NSW premier Chris Minns, who defended the decision not to light up Sydney Opera House’s sails for the Coronation and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, whose administration encouraged biological males who identify as females to participate in an inquiry into women’s pain in 2024.

South Australian premier Peter Malinauska will also be absent. He was branded ‘un-Australian’ after his government removed the names of national holidays such as Anzac Day, calling it ‘April 25’ instead. It was branded an ‘insult’ to war veterans.

Royal commentator Phil Dampier has called the politicians ‘rude and disrespectful’ while royal biographer Tom Bower told MailOnline: ‘The Republicans do their cause no good by seeking to embarrass a sick man who is doing his duty by travelling across the world at the request of the Australian government. 

‘They expose themselves as petty and worse, inhumane in not acknowledging The King’s personal sacrifice to do his duty’.

A host of Australia’s top politicians, all of them left-wing, have refused to meet Charles in Australia’s capital next week, where British campaign group Republic is even planning a protest with CEO Graham Smith flying in from the UK.

Other protests are also planned in Sydney for when Charles and Camilla are in the city. 

But Victoria’s Labor premier Jacinta Allan and her deputy premier Ben Carroll won’t be attending the King’s welcome event in Canberra on Monday October 21. 

Ms Allan, whose government has been slammed for encouraging biological males who identify as females to participate in an inquiry into women’s pain, will send parliamentary secretary Nick Staikos and state Governor Margaret Gardner, an avowed republican. 

NSW Labor premier Chris Minns said he cannot attend the Canberra welcoming also because of a cabinet meeting but he reportedly will attend other events with the King.

But he will see them in Sydney. 

Queensland Labor premier Steven Miles said he will be busy campaigning for re-election campaign and Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff, a left-leaning Liberal, is on a US trade mission.

South Australian Labor premier Peter Malinauskas also has a regional cabinet meeting while a spokesman for Western Australia‘s Labor Premier, Roger Cook would only say he has ‘other commitments’.

Royal commentator Phil Dampier told MailOnline it is ‘rude and disrespectful’ of them to turn down the King.

‘Ironically all the polls are still showing a majority of Australians would vote to keep Charles as head of state if there was a referendum tomorrow’, he said.

‘The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a Republican, but he has wisely put the issue on the back burner as he knows he could easily lose.

‘Bearing in mind his age and the fact he is battling cancer, it seems churlish of these Governors not to accept an invitation to meet the King and Queen’.

Charles and Camilla are due to arrive in Australia on Friday.

They will be heading to Sydney and Canberra, where protests are planned in a nation recently branded the most ‘woke country in the world’.

It also comes as a new poll in Australia showed support for the monarchy remains high as the King set to embark on an historic tour of the country on Friday. 

A Daily ­Telegraph in Sydney poll found one in four have a more favourable view of King Charles than they did before he was crowned. And just one in three thought ­Australia should become a republic –down on the 39.4 per cent who voted that way at the ­country’s ­referendum in 1999.

Tom Bower told MailOnline that Charles’ visit will be a great success, and the majority of Australians are behind him, as shown by the weekend’s poll.

He said: ‘Charles knows that the Australian republicans’ traditional loud campaign to end the monarchy has always been defeated by the Australian electors.

‘The King knows that the Queen and the Royal Family have always been warmly supported in Australia and have politely acknowledged the minority republicans’ weakness is that the alternative is considered to be worse.

‘The King will be received with genuine support not least because he has dug deep roots since his boyhood’.

Phil Dampier has slammed those trying to hijack the trip for their own political ends. 

He said: ‘The King and his late mother have always made it clear that it’s up to Australians to decide their form of Government and whether to ditch the monarchy, something they would accept gracefully if it happened.

‘So for these State Governors to snub him is rude and disrespectful.

‘He has shown them respect but they are not showing it back, presumably for their own political gain.

‘I’m sure Charles and Camilla will receive a warm welcome, although there will be a tiny number of anti-monarchy protestors shouting in the background.

‘The reception won’t be on the scale of when Prince Charles and his new wife Diana first toured there in the 1980s of course, and he and Camilla are a couple in their seventies.

‘But they represent a system which many people believe works for them, and let’s not forget how many Aussies still have ties to the old country.

‘Bearing in mind his age and the fact he is battling cancer, it seems churlish of these Governors not to accept an invitation to meet the King and Queen.

‘At the very least they could express their views personally and hear from their head of state.

Perhaps they fear they will be charmed by them and might change their minds’.

The row over Charles’ visit came after a number of attacks on British statues in 2024.

This is even though the King has been clear he will not stand in the way if Australia wishes to replace him as the country’s head of state.

In June a statue of King George V was decapitated in Melbourne by vandals from the ‘The Colony Must Fall’ movement who dedicated the attack to King Charles.

And in January attacks on statues of Captain Cook and Queen Victoria before Australia Day sparked more outrage

Recent division has been blamed on the nation’s left-wing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been accused of bowing to a ‘noisy minority’ spouting ‘woke rubbish’ and virtue-signalling on issues such as climate change and gender.

The attacks on British statues from the 19th century agitation over Charles’ visit give an insight into the increasing wokeifcation of Australia – a country, to the outside world at least, better known for their love of beer, beaches and cricket.

But a new young generation of ‘woke-left noisy activists’ has emerged with children Down Under ‘being taught that their country is shameful and racist’, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Albanese’s critics have said Australia in the midst of a culture war and has become too quick to ‘beat ourselves up’ and apologise for the past as well as ignored the benefits that came from being a colony.

Former prime minister John Howard, who led the country from 1996 to 2007, said last year: ‘I do hold the view that the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British’.

The King will be buoyed by polls in Australia which show support for the monarchy remains high as he’s set to embark on an historic tour of the country on Friday.

It comes after Saturday’s Daily Mail revealed he had written to republican campaigners stressing his ‘deep love’ for the country and that any debate about its future is a matter for them.

Charles is King of Australia and the country’s head of state. In a poll in yesterday’s Daily ­Telegraph in Sydney, one in four respondents had a more favourable view of King Charles now than they did before he was crowned, with just 5 per cent less positive.

Just one in three thought ­Australia should become a republic – well down on the 39.4 per cent who voted that way at the ­country’s ­referendum in 1999.

It comes as it was revealed that the monarch will pause his cancer treatment during his trip to Australia.

The 75-year-old monarch will undertake a significant official visit beginning on October 18, taking in Sydney and Canberra, immediately followed by a State Visit to Samoa in the South Pacific where he will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The Mail understands that His Majesty will continue with his ongoing cancer treatment right up until he flies but that his doctors are happy for it to be briefly stopped while he is away.

The King will then pick up with his treatment cycle as soon as he returns to the UK.

Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of the disease in February following prostate surgery and has been receiving weekly treatment ever since.

However the news that the King intends to ‘squeeze in’ a 30,000 mile, 11-day door-to-door trip in-between treatments is both good news in terms of his health – and also emphasises the commitment to duty he has shown since he was first diagnosed.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.