Bill Shorten takes a swipe at the royal Family and calls for Australia to be a republic

Bill Shorten has called out the ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘feuding’ royal family while pushing for Australia to become a republic.

The Government Services Minister gave his two cents on the Royals following Prince Harry’s bombshell interviews with ITV, Good Morning America (GMA) and 60 Minutes, where he opened fire on William, Kate and his father’s wife, Camilla.

‘It’s a shame to see a family bust-up but perhaps at the deepest level, why do we need to keep borrowing a dysfunctional British family to be the Head of State of Australia?’ he told the Today Show on Tuesday morning.

Mr Shorten said the details divulged by Harry made it seem like viewers were sitting in a ‘ringside seat of a family bust up’.

‘It’s gossip but scintillating. To me it just shows there’s a lot of damage and trauma but at another level this is just family gossip,’ he said.

‘And it reminds me that this family are the Head of State of Australia so it really puts a question mark around our government structures, where we’ve got a feuding family on the other side of the world who seem to really not like each other very much – they’re actually the Head of Australia.’

During Harry’s interview with GMA, he said he didn’t think it would be ‘possible’ to ever move back to the UK. 

‘I don’t think that even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family, there’s that third party that’s going to do everything they can to make sure that that isn’t possible, not stopping us from going back but making it unsurvivable,’ he said. 

Prince Harry has divulged details about his life, firing shots at his brother William, in a series of bombshell interviews aired this week

‘Because that’s essentially breaking the relationship between us. There was something in the future where, you know, we can continue to support the Commonwealth that of course is on the table.’

Harry also addressed claims that a family member made ‘troubling’ comments about the skin colour of his son, Archie, but denied his family were ‘racist’.

In an exchange with Tom Bradby on ITV, the host told Harry he had accused members of his family of ‘racism’ during his Oprah Winfrey interview. 

Harry responded by saying ‘no I didn’t’, adding ‘the British press said that’.

The duke continued: ‘Did Meghan ever mention that they’re racist?’

After Bradby said the Duchess of Sussex claimed troubling comments were made about Archie’s skin colour, Harry said: ‘There was, there was concern about his skin colour.’

During Harry’s interview with GMA, he said he didn’t think it would be ‘possible’ to ever move back to the UK

Asked if he would describe that is racist, the duke said: ‘I wouldn’t, not having lived within that family.’

He continued: ‘The difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different.

‘But once it’s been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that in order so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

‘Otherwise unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism.’