Earlier this year I wrote on how Queensland was to become a little less
"Queenie" with the move of the Queen’s Birthday holiday from the
second Monday in June to the first Monday in October in 2016. While the date of the Queen’s Birthday public holiday has changed
repeatedly in recent years, a bolder reform would have been to change the
holiday completely.
I’ve written before that it has always seemed absurd that Australians
acknowledge the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II at a completely different time
to her actual birthday. Like the Queen, Paddington Bear
also has two birthdays a year. The marmalade-loving bear from deepest, darkest
Peru has birthdays on 25 June and 25 December. For Queen Elizabeth II
who turned 90 on 21 April 2016 there was also a weekend of 90th birthday celebrations in Britain over the 10-12 June weekend.
The idea of two birthday celebrations was introduced 250 years ago. Earl
Charles Spencer, brother of the late Princess Diana, recently stated the Queen
received a second multi-day celebration thanks to historical tradition. As
Spencer said,
George II was ‘born in the depths of
winter, and they decided they couldn't celebrate his birthday in the winter
every year because there's all sorts of pageantry.’ So George decided he'd have
a second birthday, and the idea stuck. ‘Anyone who's been King or Queen of
England since has a summer birthday, so that we have a hope of some sunshine’.
Since 1748, the monarch's official
birthday has been marked by the parade known as Trooping the Colour — usually held on the king or queen's
actual birthday. But Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910, was born
in November. He celebrated officially in May or June because there was less
chance of it being cold and drizzly during the outdoor event.
The monarch’s official birthday celebrations (as opposed to actual birthdate) began in Australia in 1912. The monarch after Edward VII – King George V – helpfully had a birthday on 3 June. Queen Elizabeth II’s father, George VI, whose birthday was unhelpfully in December, reintroduced the tradition of an official birthday by having his official birthday on the second Thursday of June. Elizabeth II has continued with this tradition. In 1959, after several years on the throne, the Queen changed it in Britain to the second Saturday in June for convenience.
In 2014, I asked on the public holiday
given for the Queen’s birthday in Queensland, if it isn’t “time to break free?” The Australian Monarchist League line is
that celebrating the Queens’s Birthday, both actual and official, has nothing
whatsoever to do with a republic and everything to do with honouring the Queen
of Australia.
I disagree.
Moving the Queen’s Birthday public
holiday in Queensland from a date that is traditionally relevant to Britain to
an alternate date is a harbinger of the growth of republican sentiment in
Australia. Daniel Fleming wrote
earlier this year with reference to the June public holiday that
“The Queen's
Birthday holiday has become a tradition without ceremony. Most Australians
appreciate the long weekend but prefer to shop, head to the ski fields or go to
the football instead of toasting her majesty.”
He continued:
“public
holidays reveal who we are, and occasionally who we were. They commemorate
great people, events and movements. Australia Day recalls the First Fleet at
Sydney Cove, Anzac Day symbolises sacrifice and nationalism, Good Friday is a
day of Christian mourning and Labour Day celebrates worker’s rights. In the US,
Martin Luther King Day invites reflection on racism and non-violence.”
But why did the Queensland Labor government move
the Queen’s Birthday public holiday from a date traditionally relevant to
Britain and long-held in Queensland? The current Queensland Labor Treasurer
Curtis Pitt stated in June this year:
"we went through a really extensive exercise
when we were previously in government, talking about when people would like to
see it, and having a holiday in the later part of the year, when there is
almost none, was a pretty important point.”
It
appears the main reason for moving the Queen’s Birthday public holiday is to
spread the public holidays throughout the year.
But
what actually happens on this day?
Nothing.
Perhaps
the real benefit for the Queen’s Birthday public holiday in Queensland today is
to give the rest of business Australia time to wind forward their clocks and
get their heads around their own daylight savings confusion. In the meantime
Queenslanders can have the day off, top up the kid’s school stationery, not
worry about time wars, and take their time recovering from the Grand Finals’
weekend.
Surely
this must be the most irrelevant and outdated of public holidays. It’s time it was replaced with a day that celebrated Queenslanders’
achievements and aspirations as a modern, forward-looking State.
You’d think one birthday would be enough for the
Queen. Australians who are out there making a difference in their communities
every day don’t even get one day in their honour – let alone three!
Australia
today, is one of the world’s great nations, with a bright future that must be
100 per cent in the hands of the Australian people. We are ready to move on
from our colonial past and become a fully independent nation with fully
Australian national institutions, including our own head of state.
On 3 September 2016,
‘Australian of the Year’ David Morrison AO delivered the 2016 National Republican
Lecture in Melbourne. In his
acceptance speech on Australia Day this year, Mr Morrison said:
...I will
lend my voice to the Republican movement in this country. It is time, I
think, to at least revisit the question so that we can stand both free and
fully independent amongst the community of nations.
Listen to the 2016 National Republican Lecture delivered by David Morrison AO here
