"Do you still throw spears at each other?"

It is the now-infamous question that gaffe-prone Prince Philip asked Indigenous performers during a royal visit to far north Queensland with the Queen in 2002.

The remark sent heads shaking and jaws dropping around the country, but now one of the performers wants the ageing Duke of Edinburgh to know he did not think it was racist.

"[Prince Philip and the Queen] were coming down the [cable car] and we were putting on a special performance," Warren Clements recalled.

"We had royal fever so we said 'Let's go out the back and throw some boomerangs and spears and hopefully we'll get a glimpse of them as they come down'.

"They waved and we were showing off. I think Prince Philip took that in and that's why he said it.

"He's been taken out of context."

Mr Clements still vividly remembers the moment he met the royals.

"When I shook his hand, there was so much energy … you don't build fellas like that these days. He was tough as nails," he said.

"From that moment I had a deep respect for him.

"People should not judge someone unless they have met them and, most importantly, do research before they start creating media sensationalism."

Prince Philip toured Australia 22 times before stepping down from royal duties in 2017. ( Reuters: Toby Melville )

Australia's turbulent relationship with Prince Philip

Prince Philip made 22 trips down under before stepping down from royal duties early last year.

Historian Jane Connors, who specialises in royal visits to Australia, said while the nature of his frank comments had not changed, the way Australians perceived them had.

"He was famous for being more open than the very guarded Queen, so in 1954 when he was young and fairly handsome he was seen as dynamic, witty and as a breath of fresh air," she said.

"As the times have changed his remarks have just stood out more and more. Particularly when they've gone in a racist direction, people have just thought, this is so wrong.

"In a strange way as he's gotten older there has been more tolerance for it again, with the idea that's it's just his generation and he doesn't know what he's doing.

"I think there were 30 or 40 years in the middle there where people thought [his comments were] pretty inappropriate and embarrassing."

Were the comments racist?

Prince Philip has made headlines for countless public gaffes over the years.

Some of the most memorable remarks attributed to the Duke include the moment he told a British student in China, "If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes", and when he asked someone who had hiked through Papua New Guinea, "You managed not to get eaten then?"

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will arrive in Queensland on April 4. ( ABC News: Laura Gartry )

"If it has four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it" was another now-famous comment made by Prince Philip during a World Wildlife Fund meeting in the 1980s.

Dr Connors said although Mr Clements did not find Prince Philip's 2002 remarks racist, there were many other occasions when those on the receiving end of his blunt comments did.

"There is quite a hefty track record of pretty offensive remarks made towards people of colour," she said.

"[His comments were often] about primitive people. He made a few about head hunters in Papua New Guinea and he's made one or two comments on cannibalism where there hadn't been any."

Despite being well-known for his countless insensitive remarks, Dr Connors said they were not what ultimately defined Prince Philip's career.

"He married the Queen in 1947 and, whether you like the institution or not, he has gotten up every day and fulfilled a pretty punishing round of engagements with dedication," she said.

"That's what he'll be remembered for."

Royal tour 2018 BRISBANE: Lady Cilento Children's Hospital

Lady Cilento Children's Hospital Women of the World WOW Festival

Women of the World WOW Festival Government House GOLD COAST: Commonwealth Games

Commonwealth Games Commonwealth House BUNDABERG: Bundaberg Rum Factory CAIRNS: Women's basketball game

Women's basketball game Royal Flying Doctors Service base

Royal Flying Doctors Service base Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef Daintree Rainforest

Daintree Rainforest Cairns Navy base NORTHERN TERRITORY: Gove Peninsula, Arnhem Land

Gove Peninsula, Arnhem Land National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, Darwin.

National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, Darwin. Larrakeyah Barracks, Darwin

Charles and Camilla to visit

Prince Charles will follow in his father's footsteps and will visit Cairns as part of an Australian tour next month.

A rum factory, a children's hospital and the Great Barrier Reef are all on the royal agenda for the Prince when he visits Australia with his wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, his royal residence confirmed this week.

The key themes of the tour centre around Commonwealth, community, sustainability, disaster recovery and military.

The couple will arrive in Brisbane on April 4, touring Queensland's capital city before completing their royal duties at the opening of the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Prince Charles will then continue the tour solo, visiting Bundaberg and Cairns, and the Gove Peninsula and Darwin in the Northern Territory before leaving the country on April 10.