forelock tugging
Let’s put this into perspective. A pretty, young Tasmanian real estate agent meets a good-looking bloke in a boozy bar in Sydney during the 2000 Olympic Games. They hit it off and good luck to them.
They eventually get engaged and get married and have a baby boy. Why is this world news? Princess Mary has a sprog who will become the second in line to the throne of a fairly obscure European principality. Sure, it is the oldest, continuous monarchy in the world. But who cares? Except for the glossy magazines.
Australian newspapers last week were orgasmic about “our Mary”. No she’s not. Supposedly the birth of Christian or Frederick “united” two countries on opposite sides of the world. Brought “joy” to us all. No it didn’t . I went out to lunch last Sunday with a bunch of friends and nobody mentioned the addition to the Danish Royal Family. The Victorian Labor Government even offered them an old tram as a birthday present.
And it makes you wonder about this Australian forelock tugging. Why?
An anachronistic, undemocratic, monachal royal house in Denmark means nothing in an egalitarian Australia. Or it shouldn’t. Or any other country for that matter. And it makes you despair about when this country will become a republic when people go so ga-ga about a woman whose name you didn’t even know four years ago.
People actually curtsy to this woman. And I don’t mean that cruelly. I just think it is rubbish. I mean, at her own 80th birthday party, attended by political leaders from both the Conservative and Labor sides of politics, Margaret Thatcher -- one of the most successful Prime Ministers in British history – actually curtsied to The Queen. At her own party!
I confess I agree with Greg Barns, a would-be politician and former national chairman of the Australian Republican Movement. He said: “The media and political circus that has surrounded this birth… is out of all proportion”.
And he is right. What has Prince Frederick actually done in his life? Or Prince Charles. Or Prince Edward. To the manor born is no excuse any more.
And it should not be encouraged in this country. We had the “Queen of Australia” who did not visit this place in seven years. When did Anne, the daughter of “our Queen” last visit? It is bizarre. And yet people like Prime Minister Howard, feeling the ghost of Bob Menzies, cling to this Royalist rubbish.
You may well say that the referendum on a republic failed. And it did. But it was a clever ploy by Howard and other blinkered monarchists. They conned the cocky and confident Turnbulls and Vizards at that Constitutional Convention in Canberra. Got the question up they wanted and convinced people not to vote for the “politicians’ republic”. For the official monarchists it was a case of “don’t mention the war”. They didn’t even mention the Queen.
In fact, the day before the poll, a Sydney newspaper ran a poll about the strength of support for the Queen and the monarchy. The vote was against the “politicians’ republic” but only 9% of people wanted to retain the monarchy.
What was patently obvious about that national poll – and I hope we have another one within a decade – was that they put the cart before the horse. What should have been asked was a simple question: Do you want a republic? Yes or No?
On that I believe the response would have been 70% YES.
Then you have the follow-up question. What sort of republic would you like? And they could have listed three or four options. A directly elected popular president. The PM and Cabinet would still run the government. Or the hated “politicians’ president” where he (or she) would be elected by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament. Or a run-off between the top three favoured candidates.
In my mind it should have happened for the Bi-centennial in 1988. Or it should have happened on Jan 1 2001 – the hundredth anniversary of Federation.
I firmly believe that it will not happen overnight – as Rachel Hunter would say – but it will “huppen”.
I remember talking to Gough Whitlam thirty, or more, years ago. He said Australia would not become a republic in his lifetime but it would in his sons’ lifetimes. The way the old bugger has survived he may see it yet! For decades an Australian republic has been unwritten, unspoken, Labor policy. Years ago they didn’t want to talk about it because they didn’t want to scare the horses. There are also now some big-hitters on the Liberal side who feel the same way. Like PM in waiting Peter Costello.
I believe that when John Howard finally shuffles off the political stage (and I am not sure that is going to happen soon) Costello will put the republic issue right back on the drawing board. As he should.
In 2005 it is a bizarre, even quaint, anachronism, that the Head of State of Australia lives 12,000 miles away. Visits occasionally. And if/when the Queen dies the consort of “our” king will be Camilla Parker Bowles. Cut the umbilical for goodness sake! This is 2005.
A properly worded, non-political, referendum on a republic would, I believe, pass easily.
October 23, 2005
©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005
|
