With another expensive royal tour coming up, the ridiculous charade continues, says senior correspondent Barry Everingham.

The Abbott Government released the itinerary of the upcoming visit to Australia of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their son George — but what hasn't been revealed is the obscene cost this unnecessary swan around Australia will cost the hapless taxpayer.

Nor has it been revealed why the tour is taking place.

William of Wales and Kate Middleton are not Australians.

Their only connection to our country is the position is William's grandmother, the Queen. She is Britain's most highly paid public servant. She is that country's principal citizen — a position she holds by right of birth, a notion we in Australia find offensive in the extreme.

It will be remembered that her late father, King George VI, came to the throne by accident — he hadn't been trained for kingship that was saved for his older brother David, who for one brief moment was King Edward VIII. It was brief because he made the mistake of falling in love with an American divorcee, a Mrs Wallis Warfield Simpson whose previous husbands were still at the time alive. The British establishment, comprised at the time by chinless miscreants with little or nothing to recommend them, were aghast at the thought of a Queen Wallis, so Edward abdicated leaving the throne vacant for his brother, George, the Queen's father. Hence her current position.

History has a short memory and, when William's father Prince Charles was serially unfaithful to the lad's divine mother, Princess Diana, he was, unlike Edward, free to marry his long time mistress Camilla Parker Bowles — herself a divorcee with one living ex-husband still alive.

So we are saddled with Charles, with William and with little George who are a trio who, as accidents of birth, will one day be heads of state of this country.

We have no say in this ridiculous charade — unless, of course, we as a nation vote in a referendum to drag ourselves screaming into the reality of our current situation and declare ourselves a republic with a home grown head of state.

The forthcoming visit of the British celebrities will cost millions of dollars without the couple – members of one of the world's richest families – not having to spend a cent of their own money.

Read also: Royal costs - $1.8M royal tour, $350k royal coach



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