Prime Minster Anthony Albanese will travel to London this week to join other world leaders for the Queen’s funeral and to meet King Charles III, after officially proclaiming him King of Australia over the weekend.

Mr Albanese has announced a public holiday and a National Day of Mourning on September 22, and has encouraged local governments to use the day to organise events in their own communities to remember the Queen.

“The National Day of Mourning provides an opportunity for local government to organise events in their local communities, because one of the things about the Queen is that on her first visit, she was here for almost 60 days, and visited almost 60 cities and towns during that period,” Mr Albanese told Channel 7 on Monday.

“She was someone who didn’t just go to Sydney and Melbourne, she went to regional communities, remote communities, and had engagement with them and that’s why I think it is appropriate that local communities organise commemorative events.”

All premiers and chief ministers have also been invited to attend a National Memorial Service which will be held in the Great Hall at Parliament House at 11am on Thursday 22.

Parliament cancelled

Mr Albanese will depart for the UK on September 16, with the Queen’s funeral to take place on Monday September 19. Parliamentary sittings will be cancelled during that week.

Mr Albanese said he’s offered assistance to ten Pacific Island states to get to London, including flights on the RAAF VIP fleet, and will also be providing assistance to New Zealand.

“Those arrangements are being worked through at the moment, but we want to make sure that for some of these states, like Tuvalu, it is difficult for them to get there,” he told the ABC on Sunday.

“There are still restrictions on international travel. There aren’t the number of flights that would normally have been available pre-COVID. So, as part of our support for our Pacific Island neighbours we’re offering that.”

‘A reassuring presence’

Mr Albanese paid tribute to the Queen, who first visited Australia in 1954, as a reassuring presence during a time of turbulence and change and someone who was held in great respect and admiration in Commonwealth countries and around the world.

“Seventy years of devotion to duty, of loyalty and of love,” he said. “The longest serving ever British monarch, the second longest head of a sovereign state in the world’s history. That’s a remarkable achievement throughout it all.”

During her reign Queen Elizabeth presided over 16 Australian Prime Ministers, Mr Albanese said, and as Australia’a constitutional head of state she made it clear that Australia was in charge of its own destiny.

New era

 Mr Albanese said with the passing of the second Elizabethan era, King Charles represented a new era and he would have to forge his own path as monarch.

He said King Charles been outspoken on issues like climate change and the built environment and it was appropriate that he should continue to do so.

“I think dealing with the challenge of climate change shouldn’t be seen as a political issue, it should be seen as an issue that is about humanity and about our very quality of life and survival as a world,” Mr Albanese said.

The republic question

Mr Albanese, who has appointed Australia’s first assistant minister for the republic, acknowledged he has never made a secret of his support for Australia becoming a republic. However he said on Sunday this wasn’t a time to talk about Australia’s future system of government, but to pay tribute to the late Queen.

He also declined to comment about to prospect of a referendum on an Australian Republic in his first term, saying his priority was recognising First Nations people in the Constitution.

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