"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
