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Harry and Meghan's trip felt like a royal tour - except many Aussies weren't interested
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have finished their brisk four-day visit to the east coast of Australia.
With an itinerary of Indigenous culture, Australian sport, multiple good causes and a trip to the national war memorial, it had all the hallmarks of a traditional royal tour.
But Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, no longer working royals, were here in a private capacity.
When they last visited in 2018 - then still active members of the Royal Family - tens of thousands of people greeted them on a nine-day tour across Australia.
This time was different. Most Australians the BBC spoke to were either unaware or uninterested in the couple's visit.
There has been some backlash too, after it emerged Australian taxpayers may be saddled with some of the security costs for their public events.
"If they think it's gone well, it's because nothing has gone wrong," says Giselle Bastin, an associate professor at Flinders University with a research interest in Australia's relationship with the monarchy.
"They didn't turn up at great big advertised opportunities to see them, at least not in the form of walkabouts, so they've managed to minimise the risk of people having a negative reaction, or hecklers calling out or booing them or anything like that.
It has been very carefully controlled so that they just sort of spontaneously appear at places.
That's not to say Harry and Meghan haven't been in their element during such encounters, high-fiving fans and taking selfies with them.
We witnessed this up close time and again – including on Friday, when Harry met Michelle Haywood beneath the sails of the Sydney Opera house. Haywood is the daughter of Daphne Dunne, a servicewoman and war widow who met the Prince in 2015 during a previous visit; she was wearing her husband's Victoria Cross.
Dunne died aged 99 in 2019, but Haywood waited patiently this week to present Harry a photo of her mother alongside him, in his army fatigues.
He just said, 'Oh my gosh' and then he gave me a big hug," Haywood says. "It was beautiful. He went through each time he'd met her, and he reminded me of one of the times when it was pouring with rain. He remembered it vividly.
Meghan also showed her warmth, whether listening intently and compassionately to survivors of the Bondi Beach attack, or telling a young boy how much her children loved the Australian book Diary of a Wombat.
And if you call that a connection, then it was right on brand. The words "connection" or "connected" were mentioned 30 times across the press releases issued by the Sussexes' media team to journalists after each day of the visit.
Such missives resembled the way royal press officers would round up a day of engagements on a royal tour, except these were with language free of convention and formality.
They mentioned "community" on 21 occasions and "wellbeing" eight times. Incidentally, "royal" appears just once in the press releases - in the name of the Melbourne children's hospital the Sussexes' visited at the start of the tour.
Mental health was another theme of the couple's schedule, including meeting young people to discuss the harms of social media. It was here Meghan said she had been "the most trolled person in the world" for 10 years and shared stories of being attacked and bullied online for a decade.
But social media has also been useful to the pair - their "@sussexroyal" Instagram account has 8.7 million followers. Such a platform could prove increasingly useful with the couple now open about seeking new opportunities since their deals with Spotify and Netflix ended.
Harry and Meghan have a life to build - and pay for - away from royal duty. But when it came to the commercial side of their Australia trip, it wasn't always clear what was – and what was not – a paid gig.
The Duke spoke powerfully at a summit on mental health about life as a royal after the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Tickets for the event were sharply reduced in price, but still cost nearly A$1,000 (£520) a head.
Organisers repeatedly refused to confirm to the BBC whether Harry got a fee, saying only "all ticket proceeds" went to the Australian charity, Lifeline.
Meghan was paid to appear for a couple of hours at a glitzy "girls only" weekend retreat with VIP tickets costing A$3,199 (£1,725).
She was also unveiled as an investor in OneOff - an AI platform that gives fashion suggestions based on the styles of celebrities and influencers, with a small cut of sales going to the featured stars. The Duchess's profile on the app already features items she has worn during the Australian tour.
While the itinerary for their 2018 mega-tour was rammed with engagements (76 over 16 days in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga), this one had plenty of gaps.
Most notable was Meghan's complete absence of public-facing appearances on Wednesday. That evening, it was revealed she had been filming an episode of MasterChef Australia.
It is understood she was not paid for this, although the Duchess does have a food-centric show on Netflix, and her As Ever lifestyle brand includes a food range. Last year the trademark was registered in more than a dozen product categories in Australia, including cookware and table linen.
For the Sussexes, the only acknowledgement of the business side of the trip came at the bottom of a five-page pre-tour briefing. It said: "As with many visits of this nature, a small number of private engagements are included to support broader commercial, charitable, and community objectives."
Of course, as private citizens, the couple are not required to declare their earnings publicly, nor to account for their every move.
But Bastin, the academic, feels some of the ventures appeared "tone deaf in a cost-of-living crisis".
And one Sydney Morning Herald columnist proclaimed: "Australia was good to Harry and Meghan. Now they want to use us as an ATM."
Such a portrayal is "in part" unfair, says Michael Hartung, chief executive of Invictus Australia, which organised the 2018 Invictus Games - the sporting competition for wounded and sick military personal and veterans, founded by Harry in 2014.
"A lot of criticism is thrown their way and what we've seen this past week is they do a hell of a lot for charity and organisations like us, where their presence here in Australia has made a significant impact on our work," he tells the BBC.
Our work will advance years ahead as a result of their visit, that would have otherwise taken us a lot of hard work and effort to engage with different people and audiences. It really does make a difference.
And perhaps unsurprisingly, Harry and Meghan's fans stress how the majority of their time here has been spent on good causes, and see no issue with the commercial side of the trip.
"They're entitled to make the money how they need to," says Lisa Perry, who was visiting Sydney and got a selfie with the pair.
They've chosen their path in life and if that's their brand and they need to make a living and do it how they wish, they should be allowed to do so.
Vida Benic, who met the couple in Melbourne, insists she's "not into negativity".
They're welcome to come here any time. Our big Australian arms and hearts are fully open to them – and to their children hopefully one day.
Source: BBC
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