This Republican Moment

2015 has been huge on the road to an Australian republic. The history of republicanism in this country has been one of bursts of energy followed by low activity for a decade or more. However, as Peter FitzSimons, National Chair, Australian Republican Movement says “never before have the stars of the Southern Cross been so aligned, in pointing to the dawn of a new republican age for Australia".

It appears we are in the throes of another Australian republican moment. There have been previously three major republican moments in Australian history. Each of these republican moments occurred seemingly out of nowhere resulting in republican arguments becoming prominent in Australian political discourse. Hitting like a republican strike of lightening, an event such as the knighting of Prince Philip creates a new zeitgeist, a new republican ‘spirit of the times’. Of course, the reality is the political landscape was already covered in republican tinder that had built up over years.

I wrote recently that the sunlight of Australian independence is appearing over the horizon and it was a great time to be an Australian republican. Confidence is growing that Australians are going to get there, helped along by the fact that we finish the year with Australia’s most famously passionate republican as our Prime Minister, as well as the Opposition Leader, all six Premiers, and both Chief Ministers of the Territories as republicans.

2015 will come to be viewed as the year that the renewed push toward an Australian republic began. There are many reasons for this prediction including Peter FitzSimons’ ground breaking speech to the National Press Club, the ALP’s updated republican policy, Australian Republican Movement's former National Chair Malcolm Turnbull’s ascendance to the prime ministership, and Prince Charles and Camilla’s lack lustre royal visit in November. But really the momentum began to build early in 2015 with the memorable knighting of Prince Philip.

This latest moment of alignment of the stars of the Southern cross began on Australia Day 2015 with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s bizarre ‘captain’s pick’ to award an Australian Knighthood to the Queen’s consort Prince Philip.

Abbott had taken Australia by surprise in March 2014 when he brought back knights and dames of the Order of Australia with little to no consultation. The titles had been discontinued in Australia in 1986 and the decision to reintroduce them was met with much derision.

When Australians woke on Australia Day 2015, having heard the previous evening Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s positive comments about our republican future, the overwhelming public response of disbelief to the announcement demonstrated that Australians recognised that our identity is Australian, not colonial, anymore.

What was confirmed in the response to Tony Abbott’s restoration of Knights and Dames and the granting of an Australian knighthood to Prince Philip is the strength of republican values in contemporary Australia. That means support for our independence, support for our own institutions and a belief in our own capacity to govern.

Tony Abbott’s staunch support for the monarchy during his political career and popular visits from Prince William and his family over the past few years had put the republican debate on the backburner. Early in 2015, the Queensland Newman LNP government and its monarchical horde were removed. Since the election of the LNP Newman Government in 2012, there had been a steady output of ideological revisionism aimed at bolstering the concept of monarchy in Queensland. By June 2015 Queensland looked like becoming a little less 'Queenie' with the proposed move of the Queen’s Birthday holiday next year to October to return Labour Day to its traditional date, Even Prime Minister Abbott had been rattled by the republican sentiment in the country and had not taken the opportunity to appoint more ‘Sirs and Dames’ in the honours list.

In July 2015 the Australian Republican Movement appointed distinguished author, journalist and Australian rugby union international Peter FitzSimons as national Chair as it geared up for a high-profile campaign ahead of the next Federal election.

On the evening of Monday, 14 September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull became the 29^th Prime Minister of Australia. This was a game-changer for Australian republicans. The removal of Prime Minister Abbott, a former National Director, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, began with his unpopular first budget in 2014 and continued with his widely-mocked decision to award a knighthood to Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip on Australia Day, 2015. The successful coup resulted in Australia’s fourth leader since 2013 and followed an 18-month run of dismal polls from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Facing an electoral wipe-out at the next election, due in 2016, the Federal Coalition turned to Malcolm Turnbull, who came to national prominence as National Chair of the Australian Republican Movement and chief proponent of an Australian head of state in the lead up to the 1999 referendum. With that the King of the Monarchists was felled.

The first significant policy change for the Turnbull Government was to call it a knight on titles. In abolishing the titles of Knight and Dame from the Order of Australia awards, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull helped grow our current Australian republican moment.

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The mid-nineteenth century saw the first republican moment in Australia’s past. This was a period in which colonial grievances reached their height. In Sydney in 1850 the outspoken firebrand Reverend John Dunmore Lang, the People’s Advocate editor E.J. Hawksley and the young Henry Parkes campaigned through the Australian League for a republican form of government when the British government wanted to reintroduce transportation of convicts. By 1852, Lang had published Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia, an appeal for the establishment of a United States of Australia. This was the first argued case for an Australian republic.

In the early 1850s during the gold rushes there was an influx of large numbers of migrants from Europe and the United States to Victoria, many of whom were sympathetic to republicanism. This caused British officials to fear the possibility of revolution. In 1854, the Eureka Stockade rebellion at the Ballarat goldfield was ultimately a republican desire for government by the people. However, the urgency vanished when responsible government was granted in 1856.

The second republican moment occurred during the late 1880s to early 1890s. This was a time when republicanism became strongly anti-monarchical and nationalist in sentiment. The ‘inevitability’ of an Australian republic became a common theme.

The radical bookshop was the heartland of nineteenth-century radicalism. In the back rooms of radical bookstores and newspaper printeries sprinkled throughout the colonies, republicanism was a topic of heated discussion. Many of the radical republican writers of the 1880s and 1890s found a vehicle for their ideas in the radical newspapers and journals. By the 1880s, Australians had become a more mobile people. In addition a majority were native-born and most were literate. These two factors helped in providing an audience for the many nationalist writers who were active in the last three decades of the century. By the 1880s and 1890s, radical journals such as the Bulletin, Louisa Lawson’s The Dawn and the short-lived Republican in Sydney, the Clipper in Hobart, the Tocsin in Melbourne, the Worker and Boomerang in Brisbane and the Charters Towers Australian Republican reflected the radical, intellectual and political energies emerging in Australian life. For these journals, Australian nationalism was closely interwoven with republicanism.

The Commonwealth of Australia was the title chosen for the new nation at the 1891 National Constitutional Convention. Although there was controversy over the republican ancestry of the term it was the title accepted in 1901. Prior to the mid-1890s, republicans had insisted that national independence could be achieved only by Australia’s secession from the Empire. However, by 1901 federation was seen as the first step on the road towards political independence.

There were brief republican moments in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1960s republican activity was restarted by authors Geoffrey Dutton and Donald Horne. At the same time the student magazine Oz lampooned the monarchy. However, the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the appointed Governor-General on 11 November 1975 outraged many Australians. Since those turbulent days, several notable Australians declared a commitment to an Australian republic. There were many Town Hall meetings and calls to ‘maintain the rage’.

The third significant republican moment was during the 1990s. In 1991 the Australian Republican Movement was established, with Tom Keneally as the Inaugural Chair. In 1993 Prime Minister Paul Keating formed the Republic Advisory Committee, led by Malcom Turnbull to prepare options on how to achieve a republic with minimal constitutional change. In June 1995, Keating announced his goal of a republic with an Australian head of state. The 1998 Constitutional Convention helped to strengthen the debate for a republic. However, on 6 November 1999 the republic referendum was defeated because many pro-republicans voted ‘no’ as they feared that without a direct election they would gain a ‘politician’s republic’.

 

While the republic was a major issue in the late 1990s, the debate was caught up in an argument about the best selection method for the Head of State and on this crucial issue republicans divided. With the waters muddied in this way – and not cleared with proper community engagement – the voting public said no.

It appears 2015 is the beginning of the fourth republican moment in Australian history. An Australian republic is back in the headlines, and the Australian Republican Movement has bold new leadership with Peter FitzSimons AO. Right now, Australians are thinking and talking about our national leadership, and our national identity, in ways they haven't for a long time. And better still, the ARM's membership has quadrupled this year.

So where to from here?

The Prime Minister set the Australian Republican Movement a challenge when he recently remarked that:

"The republic issue cannot belong to a politician, it's got to be a genuine popular movement."

Grassroots activism is the focus for enabling change - changing the minds of Australians, one by one if necessary. Perhaps it is the Scouts who are showing the way. Their survey of all members nation-wide on their view to the removal of the oath to the Queen in the Scout Promise ends on 31 December 2015. The purpose to removing the oath is not only about making the Scouts more inclusive, but an understanding that Australia is changing. Their review acknowledges this nation seeking its own identity as part of being Australian.

The Scouts can see the change that is coming.

Change is coming.

Let's all work to ensure this fourth time we achieve our republican destiny.

Scouts prepare to remove the Queen

THE REVIEW of the Scout Promise to remove the oath to the Queen is not only about making the Scouts more inclusive, but an understanding that Australia is changing. It acknowledges this nation seeking its own identity as part of being Australian.

IT LOOKS like it’s about to become more comfortable for Australian republicans to slip on a woggle.

Since the publication of Scouting for Boys in 1908, all Scouts and Guides around the world have taken a Scout (or Guide) Promise to live up to ideals of the movement. The Scout Promise has varied slightly over time and from country to country.

In 2001, Scouts Australia made a conscious effort to modernise the Scout movement by scrapping its khaki uniform in favour of navy blue shorts and hat. This was based on research that the Scout movement was seen as militaristic and this was maybe something that was stopping kids either joining Scouts or staying in Scouts. The uniform change worked as Scout numbers around Australia have risen since.

In 2012, Richard Miller, then national chief executive of Scouts Australia, explained that in 2001 the Scout Promise was also changed so that an individual had the option to omit reference to the Queen.
Scouts Australia is currently having a major review of everything that takes place within the Scouting Movement.

Their rationale is that:

As Australian society is rapidly moving forward, we need to continuously consider how Scouting should also evolve, and ensure as many young Australians as possible can feel included in our Movement.

Through talking to our members, we have found a disconnect between the current wording of our Promise and Law, and the experiences of many of our members … There is a strong feeling amongst many of our members that some of the wording we require our Members to say is not consistent with their beliefs or their current use of language

The end result is we are either losing members, or, some of our members are using words they don’t actually believe in.

For these reasons, we have been looking at the wording and language of the Australian Scout Promise and Law, and how we can put it in a more contemporary Australian context, while still maintaining its key principles.

In looking to create a more inclusive Scouting Movement, the review teams have looked closely at ensuring that the Australian Scout Promise and Law remains a true reflection of the organisation and its members.

The task was to keep the foundations of its meaning, while using more contemporary language that would ensure all young Australians are comfortable making the Scout Promise and living by the Scout Law.

After considering the research and Scouting community feedback they have proposed two Scout Promise options. Neither have any references to” duty to the Queen of Australia.” Feedback can be given at http://ypr.scouts.com.au/promiselaw until 31 December 2015.

In the Scout Promise for over a decade it has been an option to say either "duty to the Queen of Australia” or "duty to Australia".

Surveys of the Scout Australia community found:

'With over 50% of survey respondents suggesting this phrase needs to change, and less than 12% preference for this principle in the follow-up survey.'

The analysis by Scouts Australia states they “need to consider its (the phrase) place in the Promise, and whether providing options promotes the unity of our organisation.” It was also considered that the broader Scouting community favours the phrase “to help other people” when considering “Duty to Others” in the Scout Promise, and “to contribute to my community” as the next preferred option, similar to the modification made by Guides Australia in 2012.

In 2012, the change to the Girl Guides of Australia 40-year-old pledge to Queen and to God involved a survey of all 28,000 guides and leaders on changing their promise. After 18 months of intensive consultation of Australia's largest volunteer girls group, most of them girls between the ages of 10 and 14, it was agreed that from 6 July 2012 Guides Australia would drop the pledge of allegiance.

The refreshed Girl Guides' promise has its 28,000-strong group now promising to do their best

'...to be true to myself and develop my beliefs" rather than to "do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country.'

Although the change occurred in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, Girl Guides Australia director Belinda Allen says the timing is right.

NSW Guides Commissioner Belinda Allen said:

"We are very much hopeful with the new wording to the promise that we'll be seen as more inclusive and modern and relevant organisation and many more people will like to join us."

In the new Girl Guide promise, 'loyal' has been replaced with 'respect' and 'helpful' replaced with 'considerate'.

The old Guide Promise

I promise that I will do my best:
To do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country;
To help other people; and
To keep the Guide Law.

The new Guide Promise

I promise that I will do my best:
To be true to myself and develop my beliefs
To serve my community and Australia
And live by the Guide Law.

The modernisation of the Girl Guide pledge reflects Guides Australia desire to move with the times in the understanding that Australia is changing; it speaks of this nation seeking its own identity as part of being Australian.

While Australians come from all over the world and often have emotional attachments to other countries, we have built, here in Australia, a unique community based on the values of a fair go and getting on with the job.  For the girls of the Guides Australia, the boys and girls of Scouts Australia, and for all Australians, we should be proud of Australia's heritage, such as being the first country in the world to introduce votes for women and to allow women to stand for parliament.

Our young people are the future and it is very important that they develop the ethic of service to community and country. It is our responsibility to teach them to take control of their own destiny, through community service and confidence in themselves. All of the things we have achieved as a nation have been the result of Australians contributing to their community. Girl Guides and Scouts have played their part in that and we salute them for their service to Australia.

Feedback can be given at http://ypr.scouts.com.au/promiselaw until 31 December 2015.

Remember November - Australia's 'republican season'

Any visiting royal should think twice about visiting Australia during November, with today being the 40th anniversary of the Whitlam government dismissal and November in Australia being full of republican symbolism. 

Remembrance Day at Australian War Memorial

 

 

 

HERE WE GO AGAIN! Why do these princes keeping coming to Australia? It used to be only once a generation thing. Now they seem to be coming all the time. It used to be as rare as a bunyip sighting. There’s no place for princes in Australia — unless they are galloping across the winning line at the Melbourne Cup.

In July 2015, it was announced that Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall would be visiting Australia. This would be Prince Charles 15^th visit to Australia and the second joint visit by Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. Prime Minister Tony Abbott welcomed the news from Clarence House. However, on 15 September 2015, the republican Malcolm Turnbull became the 29^th Prime Minister of Australia. Now, rather than the arch monarchist Tony Abbott, Prince Charles will be met by his republican successor, Malcolm Turnbull.

The first prince to visit the shores of Australia arrived in November 1867 as has the latest royal prince. Prince Charles also last visited in November 2012. What is it with November and visiting princes?

November in Australia is a time of the year full of republican symbolism. The republican season includes the anniversary of the 1999 republican referendum, as well as the anniversary of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s dismissal by then Governor-General John Kerr in 1975. The latter event remains the most dramatic event in Australia’s political history and began the modern republican movement. 2015 will also be the first anniversary of the November 2014 memorial for Gough Whitlam.

Any visiting royal should think twice about visiting Australia during November. Admittedly, the current royal tour would have been organised when monarchist Tony Abbott was still prime minister. Back in the UK, Prince Charles would have seen the forelock tugging treatment his sons William and Harry received during their royal visits and thought it a good time to visit Australia. During Abbott’s tenure, Prince Philip received a knighthood, Harry was feted all around the country and Abbott waxed on about our British heritage.

But still, Prince Charles’ Clarence House advisers don’t seem to realise this is the republican end of the year in Australia and is not the best time for British royalty to show up and remind Australians there isn’t an Australian as Head of State but rather a member of an aristocratic family living in a foreign castle over 9000kms away.

The fact that they do show demonstrates either a desire for a combatant stance against the tide of republican sympathy, a casual disregard for any desire for independence within the Commonwealth, or blissful unawareness on any debates about an Australian as our head of state. Whichever way, Clarence House advisers are obviously out of touch with the Australian political landscape to have approved a visit to Australia during the "republican season’.

Although Prime Minister Turnbull signalled he would not rush to revive the republic debate, only days before Prince Charles’s visit, he pointedly abolished the awarding of knighthoods and damehoods, saying they were “not appropriate” for modern Australia. If there had not been a recent change of prime minister the current royal tour would have made a royal bookend to the year which began with awarding a knighthood to Prince Philip, Charles’ father on Australia Day 2015. This "captain’s pick" by Tony Abbott had been greeted with general derision and disbelief. This decision the first significant policy change for the Turnbull Government and was a decision widely applauded as it resolved a national embarrassment.

Prince Charles was awarded an Australian Knighthood in 1981. This makes him only one of two Australian Knights still living and the longest of these to have held the award. As Prime Minister Turnbull prepares to host his first official royal visit, he could have some explaining to do at Government House when they meet on 11 November. However, most Australians would agree that with the removal of knights and dames from Australia the calendar has been reset to 2015.

Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall began their 12-day tour of Australia and New Zealand on 4 November 2015 when they landed in Wellington, NZ. Charles pleased New Zealanders by declaring how happy he was that country had won the Rugby World Cup.

Perhaps the prince forget where he heading next, because on 10 November 2015, the royal pair decamped across the Tasman Sea to Australia where they will visit Adelaide, Barossa Valley town Tanunda, Canberra, Sydney, Perth and Albany.

On 14 November, Prince Charles will be returning to Perth’s North Cottesloe beach for his 67^th birthday barbeque bash. Perhaps he is hoping to remind everyone he was once seen as a desirable bachelor.

However, as Helen Trinca writes, the kiss Charles received in the surf from model Jane Priest at Cottesloe Beach in 1979, turned out to be a set-up

“with the bikini-clad model roped in to help … make HRH look like the sort of chap gorgeous girls would race across the sand to embrace.”

Local Perth model smooches Charles Windsor in 1979 — later discovered to be yet another royal PR stunt

This latest royal visit is a bookend also to the first royal visit, which occurred over five hot months from 1867 to 1868. This was undertaken by Queen Victoria’s second son Prince Alfred, a Royal Navy captain on a round-the-world voyage on board the HMS Galatea. Stops were made at Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. He first landed at Glenelg, in South Australia, on 31 October 1868. As the first member of the British royal family to visit the Australian colonies, he was received with much enthusiasm. During his stay of nearly five months, Alfred visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tasmania.

At a meeting on 20 January 1868 to elect three trustees from the subscribers to the fund for the erection of the first Grammar School in Brisbane, there was a discussion on the probability of Prince Alfred who was about to visit the colony to lay the foundation stone.

The Brisbane Courier on 21 January 1868 stated that

'... as almost a necessary consequence, the school would be in some way connected with his Royal Highness by name. As, however, the number of institutions which either now did or promised to bear the name of Prince Alfred, or Duke of Edinburgh, in the other colonies, had become almost beyond all count, he would suggest that they had better confine themselves out here to some such name as the ‘Prince’s School’, or ‘Queen’s School … [another] said he believed according to the Grammar Schools Act they were bound to call the school the "Brisbane Grammar School".'

During his visit to Brisbane, Prince Alfred laid the Brisbane Grammar School Foundation Stone on 29 February 1868, however the people of Brisbane refused to yield to the pressure around all the colonies to name all institutions after the visiting royal. Instead of naming the school after him, the event was commemorated in the present School with his coat-of-arms included in the northern stained glass window of the Great Hall. The fact that he wasn’t liked much helped the burghers of Brisbane maintain their "republican" stance.

On 12 March 1868, during his second visit to Sydney, Prince Alfred was shot in the back by a revolver by Henry James O'Farrell in an attempted assassination while picnicking on the beach in the Sydney suburb of Clontarf.

This created a wave of sectarian hatred and fanatical declarations of loyalty. In this climate, republicanism became associated with fenianism, violence and anarchy. One result of the Irish assassin O’Farrell’s shot was that Henry Parkes passed the Treason Felony Act which made disloyal talk of any sort a crime, punishable by six month’s prison. Prince Alfred was wounded just to the right of his spine but was saved from serious injury by the rubber suspenders he was wearing to hold up his trousers. He recovered fully and continued on his world tour.

The first royal tour included a school rejecting the use of a royal title, as well as being shot at while attending a beach barbeque. The first event has an echo in the current abolishing of knighthoods. Hopefully though there won’t be any incident at the Cottesloe beach birthday barbeque like Clontarf beach in 1868.

Throughout most of the 1990s, Malcolm Turnbull led and funded the Australian Republican Movement. Even though Turnbull has played no active role in the Australian Republican Movement since the 1999 republican referendum defeat, for many Australians he is still the face of the call for an Australian as head of state. It is his name that many ordinary Australians first mention when the republican argument is brought up.

As the then national chairperson of the Australian Republican Movement, Malcolm Turnbull pinned the 1999 referendum’s defeat squarely on the Prime Minister, John Howard, when he said:

“History will remember him for one thing. He was the Prime Minister who broke the nation’s heart.”

And history may yet remember Turnbull as the man who put the pieces back together again.
In any case, November is a great time to be a republican in Australia.

Australia's 'Knightmare' is finally over

The first significant policy change for the Turnbull Government is to call it a knight on titles. In abolishing the titles of Knight and Dame from the Order of Australia awards, Turnbull has helped the recent growth of the movement for an Australian republic.

THE FORMAL removal by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of one of Tony Abbott’s most unpopular “captain’s picks” resolves a national embarrassment. Turnbull has confirmed there will be no more anachronistic Australian knights and dames.

Australian Republican Movement chairman, Peter FitzSimons said:

 “Tony Abbott's reintroduction of imperial honours reflected the Australia of the past, not the diverse and multicultural nation that exists today.”

Abbott did a great thing when he reminded Australians what elitism really looks like and succeeded in highlighting that the concepts of both a royal family and royal honours are elitist nonsense, which jars with life in Australia.

The backlash against this “captain’s pick” indicated the strong feeling that exists within the community regarding Australia’s national identity and the way in which we express it.

FitzSimons continued:

"The ARM renews its call to our former chair, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, to commit to advancing an Australian republic during his time as PM.”

The path is now clear to attend to the fact that Australia’s head of state is not one of us.

It’s a great time to be a republican in Australia. Recent events have changed the political landscape for the better — and taken the journey towards an Australian Head of State a lot closer. On 26 August 2015, the Australian Republican Movement’s chairman, Peter FitzSimons, entertained a full house at the National Press Club in Canberra.

In the most significant speech on the Republic since the 1999 referendum, FitzSimons outlined the ARM’s plans to launch a new campaign for a national plebiscite on the question of an Australian head of state by 2020.

FitzSimons told the audience:

In the 21st Century it is ludicrous that we still have a system where no Australian child will ever be good enough to become the Australian head of state, because they are not born into the British royal family. We must call that for what it is — not right, and simply not fair.

In every other part of our national life, we honour those who have a go, who rise on their hunger, their talent, their application of three parts elbow grease to two parts gumption. We exalt the whole idea of the fair go, and in just one part, one sole part of our national life do we say ‘no Australians need apply’.

This strength of feeling is also indicated by increased support for an Australian republic. The ARM saw its membership surge when knighthoods were reintroduced in 2014 and again after the knighting of Prince Philip on Australia Day. Membership has doubled again in the weeks since Malcolm Turnbull became PM.

The latest polling has nearly 50 per cent of respondents in favour of an Australian head of state. Ahead of her 100th birthday in September, long-time ARM member and volunteer Beryl Nicol made it quite clear that she did not want to receive a letter from Her Majesty the Queen. Rather, Beryl requested a certificate from the ARM celebrating her milestone. Prominent Australian author – and inaugural ARM chairman – Thomas Keneally obliged, delivering his personal congratulations along with a certificate from the ARM congratulating Beryl on her 100th birthday.

Staunch republican Beryl Nicol opts for a letter from Keneally instead of the Queen

Congrats to Beryl Nicol. On 100th birthday chooses right - chooses republican Keneally not a Windsor “queen”.

So where to from here?

The political landscape in Australia is definitely changing. The Prime Minister, Federal Opposition Leader, six premiers and Chief Justice are all declared republicans. It appears the points of the Southern Cross are coming into alignment.

However, the PM set the ARM a challenge when he recently remarked that:

"The republic issue cannot belong to a politician, it's got to be a genuine popular movement."

This is fair enough. It is not enough for the political conditions to be right — there needs to be a desire for change.

With the removal of knights and dames from Australia the calendar has been reset to 2015.

The work now is for the Australian Republican Movement to grow from being a lobby group to a genuine popular movement.

Turnbull's election is a game-changer for Australian Republicans

Early spring time in Australia is a time of renewal, a time when wattles are in bloom and perfect for political blood spilling.

ON THE evening of Monday, 14 September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull became the 29^th Prime Minister of Australia.

The successful coup resulted in Australia’s fourth leader since 2013 and followed an 18-month run of dismal polls from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Abbott had taken Australia by surprise in March 2014 when he brought back knights and dames of the Order of Australia with little to no consultation.

The titles had been discontinued in Australia in 1986 and the decision to reintroduce them was met with much derision. However, the demise of Prime Minister Abbott, a former National Director, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, began with his unpopular first budget in 2014 and continued with his widely-mocked decision to award a knighthood to Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip on Australia Day, 2015.

Facing an electoral wipe-out at the next election, due in 2016, the Federal Coalition turned to Malcolm Turnbull, who came to national prominence as National Chair of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) and chief proponent of an Australian head of state in the lead up to the 1999 referendum.

Current ARM National Chair Peter FitzSimons said

"Mr. Turnbull has been one of Australia’s leading advocates for an Australian Republic with an Australian head of state."

I wrote recently that it was a great time to be an Australian republican. Australia has a Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, as well as a Federal Opposition leader who have all declared publicly their strong support for an Australian republic. In his Lionel Bowen speech, delivered in Sydney on 11 June 2015, Bill Shorten pointed out that,

“if we were drafting our constitution anew, our head of state would be an Australian. We would say, as a people, our nation’s head of state should be one of us.”

During early spring, this time of renewal, Australia’s most well-known republican has stained the wattle with the blood of the nation’s staunchest monarchist.

“With the ascension of the country’s most famous Republican, Malcolm Turnbull, at the expense of the country’s most famous Monarchist, Tony Abbott, the key difference on this sparkling day is that many of our fellow Australians now believe this can happen”, said FitzSimons.

As Peter FitzSimons, the recently appointed ARM National Chair has said:

“Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party now have an opportunity to lead a bipartisan process to change Australia’s constitution to reflect our modern, independent national identity.”

During his first speech after his elevation to the position of prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull promised a “thoroughly consultative, a thoroughly traditional cabinet government” where he would be a “first among equals”. The emphasis on traditional government and “first among equals” resonates of the language of the Roman republic.

Abbott’s staunch support for the monarchy during his political career and popular visits from Prince William and his family over the past few years had put the republican debate on the backburner. Earlier this year though, the Queensland Newman LNP government and its monarchical horde were removed. Now the King of the Monarchists has been felled.

There is no doubt that the game has changed.

Now that we have Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, it may be time to start saying:

“Well may we say God save the Queen”.

Time for Queen to hang up crown

On September 9, Queen Elizabeth Ii surpassed her great great grandmother Queen Victoria and became the longest serving monarch in British history. Certainlyhaving the same job for 23,277 days is an achievement but when will she be allowed to retire?

My grandmother will be 90 later this year. She's a hardy soul but there's no way she would be up to the frantic pace needed to be a world leader! But poor Queen Elizabeth II just keeps working.

When do you think she will be allowed to retire? Most people these days retire by 60, judges are forced to retire at 70, but Queen Elizabeth II, at 89 keeps on working.

There's no doubt she is a sturdy trooper. But when will she be given a retirement watch from The Firm and be allowed to sleep in, watch reality TV or potter around in the garden?

To make her keep working at 89 seems cruel and unusual punishment. It’s enough to make her wish for a republic.

National Wattle Day and the republic

Wattle Day is celebrated annually on the first day of spring, 1^st September and is a far more meaningful day of celebration than the Queen's Birthday. Wattle captures something crucial to the success of the republic - feeling for country.

Wattle has been the great witness to the entire Australian story. It has welcomed us all – indigenous, colonial and modern day immigrants. Australians may have made a home for themselves amongst the gumtrees, but it is the wattle tree that has found its way into Australian symbolism. Most Australians can recognise a wattle, at least when it is in flower.

Last week during his National Press Club Speech, the newly minted National Chair of the Australian Republican Movement, Peter FitzSimons made a clarion call for movement towards a republic in the next five years:

“A generation ago Australia had a go at becoming a republic and for a variety of well-documented reasons – most particularly including disunity, even among republicans, and a prime minister who just didn't believe in it – didn't quite get there.

But that was then, and this is now, and it is our hope and belief that sometime in the next five years Australia can again begin the formal process towards becoming the Republic of Australia – an independent sovereign nation, beneath the Southern Cross we stand, a sprig of wattle in our hand.”

Of course, FitzSimons is quoting from the Australian cricket team victory song Under The Southern Cross I Stand with its reference to “a sprig of wattle in our hand”.

Wattle Day is a time when the smells of spring are in the air and the vivid gold of the blossom is literally arresting. It is celebrated annually on the first day of spring when a sprig of Australia’s official national floral emblem, the Golden Wattle, Acacia pycnantha is traditionally worn. The green and gold of its leaves and blossoms were declared national

colours in 1984 and in 1988 the wattle was adopted as the official national flower. The 1^st of September 1992 was formally declared as ‘National Wattle Day’ by then Minister for the Environment, Ros Kelly, and in 1993, the Australian Republican Movement gave its support to Wattle Day celebrations throughout Australia on 1 September.

Wattle celebrations first arose as occasions when earlier generations of Australians stood up and said:

“I am from this land. This place is home."

Like the Southern Cross, the appeal of the wattle is not first and foremost to the idea of the nation — but to the idea of place.

'National Wattle Day' is about land and people. Wattle is the blaze of colour that paints Australia's landscape every year. It is the gold that blends with the eucalypt green to form the green and gold around which Australians so willingly unite. Because wattle springs organically from the land it bonds Australians as a people to the land. ‘National Wattle Day’ captures something crucial to the success of the republic — a feeling for country and a spirit of place. It is from this sense of place that the spirit of the future republic will emerge.

The democracy of wattles – the fact that they grow in all states – was the overpowering reason why the wattle and not the waratah was chosen as the floral emblem in the early twentieth century. In September 1981, historian Manning Clark wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“I love the spring. It means the wattle comes out again. It is a symbol of everything one loves about Australia and the ideal of the uniqueness of Australia. To me every spring holds out the hope that it won’t be long before Australia is completely independent [but I also] share Henry Lawson’s view that blood should never stain the wattle.”

In other words, independence of course, but peacefully achieved.

Wattle is a broad and inclusive symbol. It touches all levels of society, from very early pioneers and World War 1 diggers (buried with a customary sprig of wattle) to victims of the Bali bombings and the nation’s best who are honoured with Order of Australia awards with insignia designed around the shape of a single wattle blossom. Australian Olympic athletes wear wattle inspired green and gold uniforms. A Governor General, Sir William Deane, took wattle blossoms to Switzerland to commemorate young Australians who died there and Prime Minister John Howard wore sprigs of wattle at ceremonies after the Bali bombings.

Wattle grows in all parts of Australia, differing varieties flowering throughout the year. It links all Australians, from the first to the newest at citizenship ceremonies. The wattle flower symbolises an egalitarian, classless, free citizenry

So, when the blaze of wattle lights up the Australian landscape each year, let’s all remember that the wattle is a symbol of our land that unites us all.

Now is a great time to be a republican

In his National Press Club speech this week, the recently appointed National Chair of the Australian Republican Movement Peter FitzSimons announced that Federal Liberal Treasurer Joe Hockey and ACT Labor Senator former ACT chief minister Katy Gallagher would be co-leading a Federal Parliamentary Friendship Group focussed on an Australian republic.

The reason that support bridges the ideological divide is because the idea of a republic appeals to quintessentially Australian values. As a nation that prides itself on its egalitarianism, it is wrong that our head of state continues to be the monarch of a foreign country. For a proudly multicultural people, it makes no sense to cling to our remaining colonial ties after more than a century of independence.

As one of our foremost writers of Australian history, Peter has captured some of the pivotal moments that have shaped our national identity.

“I think most Australians agree that there is a fundamental injustice at the heart of our system when a young boy or girl growing up in this great country can aspire to just about any job except the one that should be the most representative of all – head of state,” he said.

It appears he will now be employing his considerable talents to making history as well as recording it.

During his National Press Club speech, Peter FitzSimons stated

“We’re getting the band back together, and gearing up to ask the Australian people the question again”.

“In the 21st Century it is ludicrous that we still have a system where no Australian child will ever be good enough to become the Australian head of state, because they are not born into the British royal family. We must call that for what it is — not right, and simply not fair.”

He said it was “not definite but likely” Mr Abbott would be the last monarchist Prime Minister.

Now is a great time to be a republican.

The reactionto the knighting of Prince Philip earlier in the year demonstrates how deeply republican sentiment runs in this country.

More recently, the Federal Labor Opposition leader Bill Shorten signaled his intention to advance an Australian republic should he win office.


But regardless of who wins the next Federal election, FitzSimons believes Tony Abbott is likely to be the Australia's last monarchist prime minister.

 

Whichever way you look at it, Australia's final step toward independence is on the horizon.