Turns Out Prince Harry’s Australian Trip Cost Us An Absolute Buttload

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Published

May 31, 2014

Sexy ginger royal Prince Harry made a flying visit to Australia last year, to set hearts aflutter with his good looks and spank some colonial bottoms, but it turns out that his trip wasn’t cheap. Documents obtained by Fairfax show that the Australian government ponied up a whopping $150,000 for the young prince’s two night stay.

That amount both does and does not sound like a hell of a lot of money. To poor people, $150,000 buys you half a house in the outer, outer suburbs. To James Packer, it’s probably a modest day’s winnings at the races. For your typical dignitary visiting Australia, however, $150,000 is a pretty decent chunk of change.

To put things in perspective, Harry’s two night stay cost the Australian public $75,000 per night, compared with Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose stay cost just $8000 per night, and Indonesian Vice President Boediono, whose stay last year cost a still eye-watering but not entirely unreasonable $25,000 per night.

The Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet were pretty coy on the actual breakdown of spending, and said only that “broad categories for the costs of these visits could include transport (air/ground/water), accommodation, hospitality and other related visit costs.” Such spending can also cover gifts to visiting dignitaries.

Try as we might, we can’t quite get our heads around where all the money went, but we can suggest a few savings for next time.

For instance, we found a five-hour Sydney Harbour pub crawl, which costs just $59.95 a head, and some Sydney backpacker accommodation, where a dignitary like Prince Harry can get the real young Brit abroad experience for around $33.00 per night.

Then there’s this lovely stuffed kangaroo, which is just $29.95, from Australian Geographic, and it fucking talks! This little guy makes a perfect gift for any foreign visitor. I defy you to find anything more adorable.

That comes to $155,90 for the two days, which leaves $149,844.10 still to play with, for beer, transport and the like. Just a thought for next time.

via Sydney Morning herald
Picture via Getty Images