Off With Her Head: Gillard's Greeting a Royal Mess

"The wobble" is how Prime Minister Julia Gillard's greeting to Queen Elizabeth II is being described after they met in Canberra yesterday.

Ms Gillard chose not to curtsy and instead opted for a head bow when she met the Queen, who had just arrived for her 16th tour of Australia.

But Australia's queen of etiquette, June Dally-Watkins, has strongly disapproved of Ms Gillard's greeting.

"I saw the Prime Minister kind of wobble and I didn't know, did she try to curtsy? I didn't know what she was doing. I just laughed," she said.

"I was laughing out loud because I thought it was really hilarious and of course very rude.

"But I just couldn't understand what that movement was. What was she doing?"

The Queen spent this morning cruising Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin and visiting the Canberra flower festival, Floriade.

She has no further public engagements today, but Her Majesty will spend this afternoon on a tour of the gardens at Government House in a solar-powered golf cart.

The monarch has asked to be taken to see the kangaroos in the grounds so she can take a photo.
'No obligatory code'

This morning, Ms Gillard said she chose to bow her head as she shook the Queen's hand because that is what she felt comfortable with.

"The advice to me was very clear - that you can make a choice with what you feel most comfortable with," she said.

"That's what I felt most comfortable with. The Queen extended her hand, and I shook her hand."
Audio: June Dally-Watkins critiques the Royal meeting (ABC News)

The official advice on meeting with the Queen is that there are "no obligatory codes of behaviour - just courtesy".

"However, many people wish to observe the traditional forms of greeting," the official Royal website says.

"For men, this is a neck bow (from the head only), whilst women do a small curtsy. Other people prefer simply to shake hands in the usual way."

But Ms Dally-Watkins says as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard should have gone with the traditional greeting.

She described yesterday's greeting as the lowest part of Ms Gillard's life and said instead of bowing her head, she should be hanging it in shame.

"I think it was not only funny, but it was shameful," she said.

"If she isn't a royalist, it's not a matter of that; it's a matter of paying courtesy, good manners to a queen, to the Queen.

"That was the expected thing to do and I thought not to do that shamed her tremendously."

Read on: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-20/gillard27s-royal-greeting-slammed/3581254

Going Gaga for Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth II begins this week her 16th official tour of Australia, competing with Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey as the biggest celebrity visitor down under in the past year as her fame outweighs her political relevance in a country where she is officially the head of state.

Arriving late Wednesday in the capital Canberra, where she will meet Prime Minister Julia Gillard—who publicly supports Australia's becoming a republic—the queen will take trips to Brisbane and Melbourne before traveling to Perth to open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

"The queen's visit now is less a factor in politics than it is popular entertainment," Richard Stanton, senior lecturer in political communication at University of Sydney, said. "She is seen today by a generation in the same way Lady Gaga is seen."

Still, it's hard to picture the queen's hand-waving and flower-show excursions inspiring the hysteria that celebrities do. Lady Gaga, for instance, was granted honorary citizenship to Sydney when she flew in for a single concert in July, and Oprah Winfrey's visit last December was celebrated with a giant "O" installed on the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

The queen's visit isn't expected to reignite a debate over cutting the links that make her Australia's head of state—as much as Australia's Republican Movement wishes otherwise. The lobby plans receptions in each of the major cities the 85-year-old queen plans to visit to push for a constitutional change making Australia a republic, with an elected president as head of state.

Support in Australia for the constitutional change is falling despite weakening cultural and economic ties to the U.K. China is now Australia's top trading partner, with the U.K. at No. 10 last year.

Australians overwhelmingly voted against becoming a republic in 1999, and while a poll two years later showed 52% favored the change, since then the trend has been down: to 45% in 2007 and 41% earlier this year, according to a Newspoll survey ahead of the royal wedding of the Queen's grandson Prince William and Kate Middleton.

A representative for the queen was unreachable for comment on the subject, though the queen herself has previously said that she wouldn't oppose Australia's becoming a republic.

And while the ruling Labor party is pro-Republican, it's not exactly firebrand. "I support Australia becoming a republic, but I have said that realistically that will only occur when the current monarch's reign ends," Defense Minister Stephen Smith said in an interview ahead of the queen's visit. "It is a sensible thing for Australia to become a republic, that is an inevitable process. I have never seen or envisaged that occurring in advance of the current monarch's reign ceasing."

The conservative coalition led by Tony Abbott is wholly against the country's becoming a republic. His office said he wouldn't support it even in the event of a change in monarch.

Australia's relationship with Buckingham Palace hasn't always been so easy-going. In 1975 the queen's then-representative in Australia, Governor-General Sir John Kerr, forced a near political coup when in an unprecedented act he used his royal powers to dismiss Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his entire government over a financing crisis. That left a bitter taste and began a significant change in Australian political culture away from the U.K. and the royal family.

"There was a strong perception that the monarchy had played a role and that Sir John was doing the bidding of the royal family," Mr. Stanton said.

Still, the governor general—now Quentin Bryce—remains in place, continuing a system of governance that dates back to the first colony in 1788. She consults with and represents the monarch on matters from the royal image on stamps and coins to ceremonial colors for military units.

This royal trip isn't expected to be a news maker, unlike the tour by then-Princess Elizabeth in 1952; it was while en route to Australia via Kenya she learned her father had died, making her queen. Nor is it likely to match the 1868 visit by her ancestor Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, who was shot in Sydney by an Irishman named Henry James O'Farrell. He recovered quickly, and a hospital in the city was named in his honor. (On this visit, the queen has chosen to skip Sydney.)

But any royal visit will deliver some ceremony—perhaps an argument for the royalist side in the constitutional debate. "It's nice to have a bit of color instead of the dullness of republicanism," said ardent monarchist John Armfield, a 50-year-old barrister who lives on Sydney's North Shore.

There also may be a couple of constitutional developments during the queen's trip, such as changes to the centuries-old rules governing royal succession. British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking the consent of 15 Commonwealth nations in Perth to allow the first-born women in the royal line to ascend to the throne ahead of their brothers (Queen Elizabeth's father George VI had only daughters) and for those in the line of succession to be allowed to marry a Catholic without forfeiting their claim.

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Queen to Snub Sydney on Visit

THE Queen is to spend 10 days in Australia next month - but she has given NSW a right royal snub.

The elderly monarch and the Duke of Edinburgh will instead spend their time travelling between Perth, Canberra, Melbourne and Queensland.

The Queen's decision to bypass the state is even more surprising because it is unlikely she will visit Australia again.

Royal observers believe her lengthy and wide-ranging itinerary, from October 19 to 29, indicates she will not visit next year, her Diamond Jubilee.

"The Queen is 85-and-a-half and the Duke is 90 so you can imagine they don't have too many long-haul trips left in them," said Joe Little, managing editor of British royal magazine Majesty.

"Even travelling in the way they do is bound to be a strain."

It will be the Queen's 16th visit to Australia and her first in six years.

She became the first reigning monarch to set foot on Australian soil when at 27 she spent eight weeks touring the country in 1954.

During that trip the royal couple took more than 30 flights and 207 road trips as they criss-crossed the nation, reportedly providing 75 per cent of Australia's population a chance to see the Queen.

This tour will be more low-key and is likely to be made up of hospital and charity engagements, a meeting with Julia Gillard, an official lunch or dinner in her honour and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth.

The Queen is patron of many Australian organisations, including Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital and the Scout Association.

"A full list of the Queen's engagements and undertakings during her Australian visit will be released next week," a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said yesterday.

LUCY CARNE LONDON From: The Sunday Telegraph September, 2011

the Queen is an unofficial frequent flyer - Visiting Australia on 15 occasions Since Her Reign Began

Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II could be granted Frequent Flyer status having visited Australia on 15 occasions since her reign began.

The Queen has been a regular visitor to Australia throughout her reign gracing our fair shores in 1954, 1963, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2002 and 2006.

Cunard confirms royal timetable - Rendezvous in Sydney Harbour

Cunard has confirmed that Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth will rendezvous in Sydney Harbour at around 7am on February 22 as the cruise industry prepares for another publicity extravaganza.

The ships will initially meet off Sydney Heads shortly before 5.30am before making their way into the harbour. Both will spend the night in Sydney with Queen Mary 2 berthing at Garden Island and Queen Elizabeth at Circular Quay.

Queen Elizabeth will then depart for Melbourne at noon the following day followed at 5.30pm by its larger sister which will head to Christchurch. It will be the first time two Cunard ships have arrived in Sydney simultaneously.

Next month’s visit will be the first for Queen Elizabeth in Australia which is making its maiden round the world voyage after being launched in October.

(Source: Travel Weekly – 20^th January 2011)