I think the natives, and that includes me, have moved on from the days of a white-gloved hand waving from the back of a Rolls being chaffeured along the Bruce Highway between Cardwell and Tully. And yes I do know where they are having lived in Cairns for many years and regularly driven from Manunda, Cairns to Gladstone on business.
If there is one video clip that sticks in my mind from the Brisbane floods, it was that of Kevin Rudd carrying kit for a member of his electorate in Norman Park Bris, when they were being evacuated. And whether Diana kitted out in her anti-personnel mine campaign was for a photo-shoot or not is irrelevant. That's the photo that sticks and she is remembered for, amongst others.
William, dressed in best bib and tucker, mixing it with some of the cane farmers in FNQ in scruffy shorts and singlets would only serve to distance himself from "normal" people. Whereas in flying kit climbing out of a chopper having just flown a mission would do the exact opposite.
Just about every event undertaken by the pollies, royalty and "celebrities" is aimed at the meedja anyway, so what's the harm in making it more relevant to the need at hand.