Wills-Kate cancel trip down under

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge call off their visit to Australia to avoid accusations of meddling in New Zealand's election

Wills-Kate cancel trip down under

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge call off their visit to Australia to avoid accusations of meddling in New Zealand's election

Anyone hoping to see Prince William and his new bride Kate on Aussie shores will have to wait because of the Kiwi election.

Prince William and Kate hand out operational medals to members of the Irish Guards. The ceremony was the couple's last engagement before they go to Canada at the end of the month

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were due to visit Australia during a trip to the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in October.

But they have cancelled their plans to avoid accusations of meddling in New Zealand politics and royal officials say you can't visit one country without the other.

With the election set down for November 26, Prime Minister John Key faced criticism that he would exploit the royal visit for political gain.

A royal source said the trip had been canned, meaning Australians would have to wait for their first glimpse of the couple.

"You can't really go to Australia without going to New Zealand so it's all been put on hold," the insider said.

Following the rule
As a rule, the royal family avoids visiting Commonwealth countries during general elections so as not to be seen to be showing favour to one political party.

Key, who leads the conservative National Party, met the couple during the royal wedding and had raved about Kate's desire to make the journey south.

At the time he said, "The first thing Kate said was she wants to visit New Zealand. She's keen to come down and we'll hopefully encourage her to come and visit us sometime very soon, so that was great."

It seemed like a sure thing after Prince William, the vice patron of the Welsh Rugby Union, expressed his desire to visit the country to watch the World Cup, which runs from September 9 to October 23.

Unofficial visit
Key suggested he come on an unofficial "private visit" to get around the election issue. A skeptical Opposition Leader, Phil Goff, accused Key in April of trying to use the visit to boost his popularity.

"The responsibility is really on John Key to respect the constitutional protocol by not using the visit for self-promotion or electioneering, which means he has got to behave very carefully," Goff said.

The royal couple set off for Canada and the US on Thursday.