(Reuters) -Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday he did not raise the issue of Australia severing ties with Britain to become a republic in a meeting with King Charles in Scotland.
King Charles is head of state in Australia, New Zealand and 12 other Commonwealth realms outside the United Kingdom, although the role is largely ceremonial.
Australia has long debated the need to keep a distant monarch. A 1999 referendum in Australia on becoming a republic lost with 55% of voters opposed.
Albanese, a lifelong republican who nonetheless has pledged his allegiance to King Charles, said in televised remarks on Sunday that he met one-on-one with the monarch at Balmoral Castle, his home in the Scottish Highlands.
Asked if he raised with King Charles any plans to hold a referendum on Australia becoming a republic, Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp: “No. And I think I’ve made it clear that I wanted to hold one referendum while I was prime minister, and we did that”.
Australia in October 2023 decisively rejected a referendum proposal, advanced by Albanese’s ruling centre-left Labor party, to recognise Indigenous people in the constitution.
“We’re concentrating on cost of living and on making a real practical difference to people’s lives,” Albanese said.
King Charles, the only British monarch who has spent time living in Australia, visited the country in October last year, the first visit by a reigning British monarch in 13 years.
Albanese’s meeting with King Charles came a day after the Australian leader expressed confidence that the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal with the U.S. and Britain would move forward, after a meeting in London with his British counterpart, Keir Starmer.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
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