Royal tour to brand tour: Harry and Meghan seek duty and dollars in Australia

The last time Prince Harry stood outside Sydney Opera House it was in front of 4000 people to open the Invictus Games. The heavens opened that night in spectacular fashion, and the lavish outdoor proceedings were delayed. 

No-one went home.

With his new wife Meghan gazing up from a rather sodden front row, her hand across her tummy — on their arrival in Australia the Palace had announced the Duchess was pregnant with their first child Prince Archie — Harry was on top of the world.

This exciting couple was a breath of fresh air, shaking up the monarchy and attracting diverse support from the younger generation. Back then Harry wowed the crowd talking about the “selfless duty” and “service” of veterans and paid tribute to his grandmother who 45 years earlier had opened this place.

On Friday the Duke and Duchess were back in front of the Opera House’s iconic sails on the final leg of their four-day tour of Australia. This time a few hundred came out to see them, most were there by chance but still very happy to catch a glimpse of the royals. 

Jacqui Jones, on holiday with a group of women from Tasmania, told the ABC that she’s definitely a Harry fan, but is still waiting to make up her mind about Meghan — “I can be persuaded, I suspect she may be hard done by,” she added.

This engagement was also all about Invictus, deliberately mirroring that 2018 extravaganza and after receiving a very Aussie gift of custom-made thongs inscribed with “G’day Hazza” and “G’day Megs'” from Invictus veteran Joel Vanderzwan, his wife Alexandra, daughter Charlotte and nine-month old twins Harrison and William (pure coincidence apparently!), the couple proceeded to head out to the harbour to sail with Invictus athletes.

“Having the Duke and Duchess return to Sydney Harbour where sailing first joined the Invictus movement is a full-circle moment,” said Michael Hartung, chief executive of Invictus Australia.

Full circle indeed.

Earlier in the day the duo had visited Bondi Beach, where in 2018 they’d sat cross-legged on the sand for a mental health through surfing “anti-vibe circle”. This time they were there to meet survivors of the Bondi terror attack and talk to representatives of the Sydney Jewish Museum.

The House of Windsor playbook

The Sussex camp was adamant that this visit was not a royal tour but the comparisons are impossible to ignore. 

Sure, they were not here at the invitation of the Australian government, nor were they representing the crown. They are no longer working royals, let’s not forget.

There were no police motorcades, nor special travel arrangements. They flew on privately funded commercial airlines. They were not staying in publicly funded government houses nor having official meetings with the Governor-General, the Prime Minister or state premiers.

The issue of some extra policing paid for by the NSW and Victorian state governments was a sticking point and prompted significant media criticism in advance of the couple’s arrival and a “no taxpayer funding for Harry and Meghan” change.org petition with more than 43,000 signatures hit the headlines. To be fair, the couple came with their own security which they paid for and the decision to put out extra police came from the state forces.

But these matters aside, the type and style of engagements was straight out of the House of Windsor playbook. 

The tour kicked off at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, a place Queen Elizabeth II had opened in 1963 and Harry’s parents — Charles and Diana, then Prince and Princess of Wales — visited in 1985. The military, community, sporting and indigenous engagements that made up the program all felt very familiar to this seasoned royal correspondent.

Even the operational note put out to journalists by the Sussex communications team and the use of a highly controlled pool reporter, photographer and videographer, actually from the Press Association sent out from the UK, was just like the palace royal tour game plan.

So why does it matter? After all these are all charity or community-based events designed to raise awareness and promote advocacy. What’s wrong with that?

Here’s the rub.

Building a personal brand

The actual foundation of the trip was two speaking engagements at private ticketed events with significant price points. Prince Harry delivered a keynote speech and took part in a Q and A session with Brendan Nelson at the InterEdge Summit in Melbourne on Thursday, drawing on his own “lived experience and dedication to mental health advocacy”.

Tickets ranged from $1,000 to $2,400. Profits went to the charity Lifeline Narrm, a mental health crisis support centre and InterEdge says the Duke was not paid for his participation. But the optics were that the conference, at least, was cashing in on the prince’s royal status to attract delegates and publicity and Harry was surely building his brand.

On Friday in Sydney Meghan took part in a chat with Her Best Life podcast entrepreneur Gemma O’Neill to launch a women’s wellness weekend. Guests paid up to $3,199 to attend the “girls’ weekend”; the VIP package included the opportunity to snap a group table photograph with Meghan. The organisation hasn’t confirmed if the Duchess was paid, but again the cache of the royal name is clear.

The Sussex camp built the tour around those engagements to capitalise on the couple’s time in Australia. They reached out to charities and organisations that align with their interests and values and also pursued business and career opportunities to build their brands. These included a day of filming as a guest judge on TV show Masterchef for budding foodie Meghan who trademarked her As Ever pantry range in Australia in 2025.

The Duke and Duchess also attended an event held by Nexus Global — “a global community of the next-gen philanthropists, impact investors and innovators” and appear to have spoken at the event.

Then there was the announcement that Meghan is now a participant and investor on AI fashion platform One Off where all the clothes she wears are catalogued with links to purchase. It is not clear if Meghan receives profit from this.

Talking to Australians over the past week what comes out most clearly is that the main issue with Prince Harry is not that he quit his royal work, but that he monetised criticising his family in TV interviews and his biography.

At a discussion for the men’s mental health charity Movember in Melbourne, Harry returned to the issue of his troubled childhood. “I had to cleanse myself of my past” before having children he said.

At the InterEdge Summit Harry also used his platform to share some surprising personal struggles, revealing lingering post-traumatic stress from his childhood. He spoke candidly about experiencing loss and grief as a kid under constant surveillance. We all knew what that he was talking about — the moment of losing his mother so tragically; his childhood with the paparazzi preying on him and brother William. It was a powerful address.

Then when asked by Nelson where he gets his sense of public duty, Harry joked he was born into it, but added that at 13 after his mother died, he didn’t want his royal role anymore.

“It killed my mum and I was very much against it, and I stuck my head in the sand for years and years. Eventually I realised — well, hang on, if there was somebody else in this position, how would they be making the most of this platform and this ability and the resources that come with it to make a difference in the world?”

Harry is an impressive speaker about mental health issues — which he prefers to call mental fitness. He noted it was the army that saved him and taught him perspective and joked “going to Afghanistan was to get away from the media”.

Meghan too shared some of her battles, talking to young people associated with mental health organisation Batyr in Melbourne.

“Every day for 10 years, I have been bullied and attacked. And I was the most trolled person in the entire world, man or woman,” she said.

Loading…

What would Queen Elizabeth think?

This combination of a philanthropic public service tour, business, brand building influencer moments and personal confessionals has been dizzying to watch. 

The tour side of the visit to charities and chosen organisations was mostly engineered around brief photo opportunities. The Duke and Duchess may have had more meaningful engagements if they had made them privately behind closed doors without the publicity hoopla.

What we’re really seeing here is that “half in half out” idea that the late Queen Elizabeth II said just wasn’t possible for them as working royals at the famous “Sandringham Summit” that resulted in the Sussexes quitting ‘the firm’ and moving to America in 2020.

But is granny what Harry now calls “the old guard”? And is this new version of a ‘non-royal” tour the couple’s own litmus test to see if the concept of having their cake and eating it really can work?

Furthermore, many suggest this is a baby step on the road to Harry and Meghan returning to the UK to reignite the House of Windsor with the undoubted charisma we saw in Australia over the past few days.

Perhaps, but Harry is still fifth in line to the throne and a very senior royal and I suspect he is unlikely to find support for his influencer royal scheme from brother Prince William, heir apparent.