King Charles has been Australia’s monarch for more than a year, but the federal government is still waiting for Buckingham Palace to send an official portrait.

And the government isn’t alone – eager citizens and community groups who registered their interest for photos to replace displays of Queen Elizabeth are also being kept waiting.

All Australian voters are eligible to request a portrait of the king or queen courtesy of their federal MP, as part of the nationhood material program – a little-known entitlement highlighted in a 2018 article from news website Vice.

Buckingham Palace provided an “interim” portrait of King Charles after his ascension to the throne, but the federal government has been waiting for an official Australian portrait so they can start distributing it to keen constituents or government buildings which choose to display the image.

Guardian Australia understands Buckingham Palace has not provided an official Australian portrait yet.

Charles’s interim portrait can be used for official purposes such as citizenship ceremonies – where the portrait is required under federal rules – but that image isn’t available under the nationhood material program.

After the Queen’s death in September 2022, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet said an Australian portrait of Charles would be finalised “in due course”, but that portraits of the Queen could continue to be displayed in the meantime.

Local MPs have kept lists of eager constituents who have already requested a new photo. The government deems it a decision for each public agency or building as to whether they display an image of the monarch at all.

Parliamentary offices can use their expenses budget to purchase “wreaths, flags, flag lapel pins, booklets and other specified items related to nationhood, as approved by the Minister, for presentation to constituents and organisations” in their electorate, according to the department of finance.

This can include requests for “approved official portraits” of the monarch, paid for out of the MP’s office budget, Guardian Australia understands. Constituents are able to request a portrait for free, although parliamentarians are not under any obligation to provide them free of charge.

After the 2018 Vice article brought attention to the entitlement, Tim Watts – now the assistant foreign minister but then a backbencher – described the portraits program as “comfortably the dumbest part of my job”.

Such spending on portraits and other nationhood material is disclosed in MPs’ regular expense reports, as “office consumables”. Queen Elizabeth’s death led to a flurry of requests for her portrait.

Patrick Gorman, assistant minister to the prime minister, whose office handles some of the ceremonial aspects of the prime minister’s portfolio, said many people had requested a Charles portrait.

“Many federal members and senators are keeping lists of those who have expressed an interest in receiving the new portrait once available,” he said.

Several federal MPs confirmed their offices were keeping lists of requests for Charles’s portrait, with interest particularly from community groups, retirement homes, scout halls, CWA groups and schools.

One MP said they had so much interest for portraits in their electorate that they’d begun asking constituents to check back with their office in several months.

Neither Gorman’s office nor the finance department was able to say whether the government had allocated a specific budget for the new portraits, or if there was an estimate for how many portraits would be requested or distributed.

The Guardian recently reported the British government was providing new official portraits of the King to public buildings across the UK in an £8m (AUD$15m) publicly funded scheme.

David Flint, the longtime head of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, believes it important that the government continue to make monarchy portraits available.

“The monarch provides a symbol of unity, that the crown is above politics. That’s the beauty of the constitutional system, that it is above politics,” he said.

“The portrait would be a minimal cost, and it’s an effective way of showing things where there’s no great division.”

He said he was unsure about the delay to the official portrait, and suggested “the government should be pushing that with Buckingham Palace”.

But Isaac Jeffrey, national director and CEO of the Australian Republic Movement, said public funds put to Charles portraits would be “better spent celebrating our national symbols and our people, not those of a foreign nation”.

“I’d ask anyone who orders a portrait or sees one hanging in a local hall to stop for just a moment and ask themselves if he truly represents today’s Australia,” he said.

“I’ve got nothing against Charles or the Brits, it’s just time we had an Aussie hanging on the wall, someone we’re proud to see representing us on the world stage.”