2017 has been an exciting year of momentum for the Australian Republic Movement. 2018 is scheduled to be a year of conversations, as the Republic moves up the national agenda.
In politics, the Prime Minister restated his support for change, as did every Premier and Chief Minister; the Opposition leader promised a national vote by the end of the forst term if elected; and the Leader of the Australian Greens formally joined our federal Parliamentary Friendship Group.
In December 2017 the ARM launched the Republic Advisory Panel, a group of leading Australians who are committed to an Australian head of state and who have agreed to serve as patrons for our cause. The panel is a diverse group of women and men who have each made significant contributions to Australia in fields including government, media, acadamia, business and the law. For each of these individuals, their decision to join the
Panel is a great sign of their confidence in the Australian Republic
Movement and their commitment to the idea of an Australian head of
state.
"The campaign for an Australian head of state is a big Australian
cause - with a big head of steam building up. We're drawing on support
from every community and every section of society and today is another
big step forward," said Peter FitzSimons, Chair of the Australian
Republic Movement.
"These leading Australians have generously offered their time and
energy to a great campaign. They share a simple belief: Australia's head
of state should be a citizen of Australia. Who could seriously argue
anything different!"
Louise Adler, Chief Executive, Melbourne University Publishing Kim Beazley, Former Deputy Prime Minister, former Leader of the Australian Labor Party, former Ambassador to the United States Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Managing Director, Transfield Larissa Behrendt, Professor and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney Steve Bracks, Former Premier of Victoria Tim Fischer, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Nationals; Former Ambassador to the Holy See Ross Fitzgerald, Author and historian Marina Go, Chair and non-executive director Catherine Harris, Chairperson, Harris Farm Markets, Rugby League Commissioner Robert Hill, Former Minister for the Environment, Former Ambassador to the United Nations Helen Irving, Professor of Law Simon McKeon, Philanthropist and 2011 Australian of the Year Jane Needham, Senior Counsel and former NSW Bar Association President Kim Rubenstein, Professor, Law School, and Public Policy Fellow, Australian National University. Clare Wright, Historian, author and broadcaster Talal Yassine, Managing Director – Crescent Wealth
Earlier this year, the Australian Republic Movement opened an essay
competition inviting students from across the country to tackle the
statement, 'An Australian head of state will better represent Australian
values and identity'.
In his winning entry, published here by The Sydney Morning Herald,
Victorian Dan Crowley explains that he's a republican because 'we have
forged our nation, our identity and our values'.
The next generation of
Australian republican leaders are stepping forward, though many weren't
even born at the time of the 1999 referendum.
Between now and Christmas there will be a lot of swearing heard from politicians around Australia.
So, let me get this straight...
Federal MP has dual citizenship with Britain? Disqualified. Head of
State is 100% British? No problem! How can we keep chucking out MPs with
dual citizenship when our head of state isn’t even a citizen at all.
On Monday 13 November 2017, the constitutional storm
over the dual citizenship debacle blew in replacement Senators for
those who had been declared ineligible by the High Court to hold
political office in Australia’s Federal Parliament as they contravened
s44 of the Australian Constitution. Some of the senators were declared
ineligible due to having British citizenship by descent. But how will
the replacement senators reconcile the absurdity that to become a member
of the Federal Parliament they must swear an Oath of Allegiance to the
British monarch.
As at 10 November 2017 there were 12 Senators and federal MPs who were under constitutional question. Currently there will be at least two by-elections held due to federal MPs acknowledging they hold dual citizenship. There may well yet be more
by-elections unless a general election is held. Yet when the
by-election results are finally tallied, or a double dissolution
election is held and the next federal parliament is elected, these same
MPs and senators will be required to swear allegiance to the Head of
State of the country of which their colleagues are citizens and as a
result had been declared ineligible to be elected to the federal
parliament.
Say what?
Surely this is the elephant in the room. How is it possible for the
High Court to disqualify members of parliament on the basis of Section
44 of the Australian Constitution, as being (unknowingly) citizens and
therefore subjects of a foreign power, when these same MPs and ministers
swear allegiance to the monarch of this same foreign power (and her
descendants), who happens to be our Head of State?
There can be no doubt that the "Queen of Australia" is a British
woman, yet we, here in the Antipodes, are quibbling about people we have
elected to our Federal Parliament whose dad or mum was of British
ancestry.
It’s worth remembering that, on 3 December 2007, one week after the
election of the new Rudd Federal Labor Government, a "very republican
moment" occurred when Kevin Rudd and his ministry swore an oath to
"...the Commonwealth of Australia, its land and its people."
The significance of this moment was the new Federal ministers swore an Oath under Section 62 of the Australian Constitution to the people of Australia rather to Queen Elizabeth II, a foreign monarch.
When Kevin Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, wearing R.M. Williams boots and a grin as wide as the verandah of his suburban Brisbane Queenslander, he declared:
“I, Kevin Michael Rudd, do swear that I will well and truly serve
the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people, in the office
of the Prime Minister, so help me God.”
Taking the office of Prime Minister (Executive Councillor) involves
swearing an Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation. However, under Section 62
of the Constitution, the form of the Oath of Office is not prescribed
for a minister, but by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime
Minister.
Of course, the new Oath was given to the Governor-General on Rudd’s
advice, yet he could not have technically given that advice until he
became an Executive Councillor. No doubt, this advice was relayed
earlier, perhaps through or with the approval of the caretaker, John Howard.
In taking this Oath, Rudd acknowledged the republican ideal that
ultimate political authority lays with ‘the land and the people’ of
Australia rather than with the British monarch.
The Rudd Oath should not be confused with the Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation under Section 42 of the Constitution required to be made by a Member of Parliament or Senator before taking his or her seat.
Section 42 involves swearing or affirming to '...be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors according to law.'
This Oath was also used for ministers until the Keating Labor
government removed reference to the Sovereign. However, with the
election of the Howard Liberal government in 1996, the Oath to the Queen
was restored but without any reference to 'Her heirs and successors'.
The real issue behind the question of the Oath of Allegiance or
Affirmation concerns where political authority ultimately resides.
Should Australian political authority continue to be derived from the
British monarch and, ultimately, God — or should it be acknowledged that
popular sovereignty resides in "the land and the people" of Australia?
This is a fundamental question for the republican debate.
The historical position of the Divine Right of Kings was that the power of the monarch was derived from God.
'...there is no authority except God which God has established.'
Queen Elizabeth II had to first attend a three hour Coronation
ceremony to almighty God, which in turn gave every citizen in her
realm immediate sovereign protection. But how does a divinely ordered
constitutional monarchy fit into a modern multicultural society?
In recent years, there has even been discussion in Britain about changing the Coronation Oaths. This begs the question: What relevance do Coronation Oaths have to Australia when they can themselves be changed?
But even though the current British monarch swears a Coronation Oath
and is anointed in the same way as the Kings of the Old Testament, the
Coronation Oath is essentially a human construct. It has a historical
basis rather than a biblical basis.
The Bible is not really interested in the system of government under
which God's people live, it is more interested in the compassionate
nature and morality of government. The Old and New Testament show God's
people living under a variety of different systems of governments, from
the theocracy of Moses to the Roman rule of the New Testament. But even
if ultimate authority does come from God, it doesn't necessarily flow
through the forms and symbols of the state. The evangelical Christian
tradition says authority flows through God's direct relationships to
individuals.
In 2007, Kevin Rudd, Christian and republican, asked for God's help,
not authority, to serve as Prime Minister of Australia. Republicanism
does not acknowledge God as the ultimate source of authority in our
society, rather it is ‘the land and the people’.
Sons of the South, make choice between
the land of the morn and the land of the e’en,
the old dead tree and the young tree green,
the land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,
and the land that belongs to you.
It was during the 1963 Royal Tour that Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who was "British to his bootstraps", said of the young Queen Elizabeth II:
"I did but see her passing by, and yet I'll love her 'til I die."
The tide appears to be turning towards a republican future, a future grounded more in a love of country, perhaps even in Dorothea Mackellar's My Country, where she wrote
'I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains.'
One of the essential definitions of a republic is a state based upon
popular sovereignty, in which all public offices are held by persons
deriving their authority from the people, either through election by the
people, or appointment by officers themselves elected by the people.
The exclusion of the reference to the Queen in the Federal ministerial
Oath is a tangible step towards repositioning political authority for a
republican Australia. Symbols are important and the words in this Oath
reflect more meaningfully the reality that our Ministers serve the
people of Australia and not a foreign monarch.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard continued with the Keating/Rudd Oath with
swearing allegiance to Australia. However, on Wednesday, 18 September
2013, the newly minted Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott returned to
the past by swearing allegiance to the Queen.
Responding to this, the then national director of the Australian Republic Movement, David Morris, said in a statement:
'Our elected representatives should swear allegiance solely to
Australia, rather than loyalty to someone born to rule over an Empire
long gone. We call upon all elected representatives to pledge 100 per
cent loyalty to Australia.'
It is interesting that the Federal minister's Oath has been a
republican intellectual battleground over the past 25 years. Australia's
three most recent Labor prime ministers – Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and
Julia Gillard – all used similar words when they were sworn in. But Tony
Abbott, an avowed monarchist, reverted to the previous pledge to Queen
Elizabeth II, as did John Howard, and as did also Malcolm Turnbull.
Australians need a head of state of our own — someone who can lead
the dignified part of our national life away from the day to day
screaming match of Parliament and Q&A. Australia shouldn’t
be looking backwards to Britain and the monarchy rather we should be
confidently facing the future. It’s no longer appropriate in today’s
Australia to have divided loyalties. Back in the early 20th Century, Australians were still called “British subjects” and many still sang 'God Save the Queen' — but
no more. Today, our loyalty and our identity is Australian, not
colonial. Australia should always come first for our elected
representatives.
In an oath that has barely changed since Australia federated, anyone
enlisting in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) today – Army, Air Force
or Navy – must swear that they
'... will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the
Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law ... and resist Her
enemies.'
Say what? Is there a single member of the 80,000-strong ADF that
signed up to serve the Queen and resist her enemies? What about
Australia's enemies? Surely they deserve a mention as well?
In 1994, a different pledge was introduced at Australian citizenship ceremonies.
It replaced the pledge of allegiance to the Queen with
'I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose
democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.'
In 2014, polling undertaken by the Australian Republic Movement found that seven out of ten Australians supported pledging allegiance to Australia and its people, rather than to the Queen.
The "currency lads" of the mid-19th
century would often use the toast "To the land, boys". Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd appeared to have taken Henry Lawson's advice and chosen "the
land that belongs to you" over "the land that belongs to the lord and
Queen".
Our nation’s values are democratic. To have an institution sitting
above our Parliament, over which a foreign family is born to rule, is
out of date with our identity as an independent nation. It’s about time
our oaths of allegiance were changed to reflect this.
Remember November, because November is the "republican season" in Australia.
November always a time of remembering.
The Feast of Saints
is held at the beginning of November and is now widely observed across
the world to remember those recognised as today’s saints — known or
unknown, mighty or lowly.
This is followed on the 5th November with Guy Fawkes Night, which remembers the survival of James I from Guy Fawkes’ assassination plot when he attempted to blow up the House of Lords:
Remember, remember! The fifth of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot; know of no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot!
And of course, Remembrance Day has been held each year on 11 November for almost a century to remember the Armistice of the Great War
As I’ve written before, November
is Australia’s "republican season" — a time of year full of republican
symbolism, as well as republican remembering. In Australia, the
republican season includes the anniversary of the 6 November 1999 republic referendum,
the 3 November 1997 anniversary of the voluntary postal election for
the 1998 Constitutional Convention, as well as the anniversary of Prime
Minister Gough Whitlam’s dismissal
on 11 November 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.
Recently there have been claims the British monarch was involved in Australia’s 1975 constitutional crisis.
'Nothing has changed since 1975 to stop this happening
again. And next time, it might not be an adviser to Queen Elizabeth
having these kinds of secret meetings on Australia’s internal affairs,
but a courtier of none other than King Charles.'
Early November also sees the anniversaries of the 2014 memorial for Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1971-1975), as well as the 12 November eulogy delivered for Professor George Winterton.
Winterton was a first-rank constitutional scholar and pioneer of the
modern republican debate. He spent most of his career at the University
of New South Wales, was a prominent republican scholar and writer, a
member of the Republic Advisory Committee in the mid-1990's and a key delegate to the 1998 Constitutional Convention
that crafted the minimalist republic model rejected in the 1999
referendum. More than anyone else, he produced the model that went to
the people in the 1999 republic referendum.
Republicanism emerged as an issue of major public debate during the 1990s. Australians have long discussed
the idea of replacing the constitutional monarchy with a republican
constitution, even during the 19th Century, before federation in 1901.
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. A decade on, the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the appointed Governor-General on 11 November 1975 outraged many Australians.
The 1975 Constitutional Crisis
drew attention to Australia's constitutional arrangements and, since
those turbulent days, several notable Australians have declared a
commitment to an Australian republic. There were many Town Hall meetings
and calls to "maintain the rage". During these years, the Australian
Labor Party edged towards declaring itself for the republic. This it eventually did in 1982.
In the 1990s, the popular definition of "republic" was simply the
removal of the British monarch as head of state. This was seen as the
last step in Australia’s political development. On 7 July 1991, the Australian Republic Movement was established, with the author Tom Keneally
as the inaugural chair. The Australian Republican Movement was formed
as an organisation with the single goal of Australia becoming a republic
no later than 1 January 2001.
In December 1991, Paul Keating was sworn in as prime minister of Australia after deposing Bob Hawke as leader of the Federal Australian Labor Party.
As Keating came to power in the early 1990s, his support for the
republic and issues of national identity was widely known, and he
continued to campaign for it throughout his time in office and beyond.
In April 1993, Prime Minister Keating appointed the Republic Advisory Committee, led by Malcom Turnbull, to examine options on how to achieve a republic with minimal constitutional change.
The Republic Advisory Committee published its report in 1993, in which it stated:
'... a republic is achievable without threatening Australia's cherished democratic institutions.'
On 7 June 1995, Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating formally announced his support for an Australian Republic in a televised speech to Parliament entitled 'An Australian Republic The Way Forward'.
This was the culmination of nearly a decade of discussion on
constitutional change. In the course of his speech to the House of
Representatives, he announced his government’s intention to transform
the Commonwealth of Australia from a constitutional monarchy into a
republic.
Keating proposed
a minimalist plan for a republic, concentrating on the single task of
installing an Australian as head of state, one with the same role as the
governor-general. The intended transformation was targeted to occur
before the centennial celebrations in 2001. The president of the
Commonwealth of Australia would be nominated by the prime minister after
consultation with all parties and elected by a two-thirds majority at a
joint sitting of Parliament.
The 1998 Constitutional Convention
helped to strengthen the debate for a republic as a major issue in the
late 1990s. However, the debate became caught up in an argument about
the best selection method for the Australian head of state and it was on
this crucial issue Australian republicans divided.
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.
It’s a great time
to be an Australian republican. The momentum is building. In every
state and territory as well as federally, our premiers, chief ministers,
Opposition Leader and Prime Minister support having an Australian as
head of state. And in October 2017, Federal Labor Opposition Leader,
Bill Shorten appointed Matt Thistlethwaite as Shadow Assistant Minister for an Australian Head of State.
Australians need a head of state of our own, someone who can lead the
dignified part of our national life away from the day to day screaming
match of Parliament and Q&A. How can we keep chucking out MPs with dual citizenship when our head of state isn’t even a citizen at all?
The heir
to the British throne Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are coming to
Queensland to open the 2018 Commonwealth Games. A British poll has found almost
two in three do not want Prince Charles to replace the Queen on the throne. If
the British don’t want him then why are we having him as a stand-in for the
Queen next year?
In
a blow to the monarchy on the Queen’s Birthday public holiday in Queensland, a poll of the British by the Australian Republic Movement has
found almost two in three do not want Prince Charles to replace the Queen on
the throne. Only 39
per cent of those Britons polled said they trusted the man who is set to be
their next king — and 80 per cent of respondents agreed that a country’s head
of state “should only be a citizen of that country”.
As I wrote last year, Queensland became a little less
"Queenie" with the move by the State Government of the Queen’s Birthday holiday
from the second Monday in June to the first Monday in October in 2016. Around
Australia, the Queens’s Birthday public holiday is held
on the second Monday in June, except WA and Queensland. WA had their
Queen’s Birthday holiday on Monday, 25 September 2017 and reflected on how the latest royal poll is bad for Prince
Charles however in Queenslandno one seems to
have noticedthe move.
With
Queen Elizabeth now in her 90s, Australians can expect to hear two words with repeated frequency: “King Charles.”The perceived unpopularity of the Queen’s
son is a fact backed up by polling conducted between 25 and 28
August 2017, days before the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.
Michael Cooney, ARM national director stated:
“You
get one Queen Elizabeth every 400 years, that’s the truth. It’s a big thing for
Australians to understand – that if we don’t want King Charles, we have to have
a republic. If we don’t have a republic it’s not up to us.”
“What
this really shows is that the question for Australia is not whether we have
change, it is what kind of change we have. And the choice is between either
King Charles or an Australian, chosen by Australians, to be the head of state.”
Michael Cooney said the decision by the
Australian Republic Movement to poll UK citizens was made because “they have more influence over the result
than we
[Australians] did”.
Despite the popularity of the new
generation of royals, with William, Catherine and Harry helping to reinvigorate
interest in the monarchy, Australia would have King Charles as its head of
state.
“The
one thing we know is it is highly predictable the next king of England and king
of Australia is Charles. We are not going to have William as our next king.
Becoming a republic will not stop them from visiting for things like
the Invictus Games, or the Commonwealth Games, or things
like that. But it will mean we have a chance to have our own head of state.”
Prince
Charles will open the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April 2018 and read the
message contained in the Queen’s Baton. The message is currently on a 388-day
trek across the nations and territories of the Commonwealth after the launch of
the Queen’s Baton relay at Buckingham Palace in March 2017.
The 11-day Gold Coast Commonwealth Games will be the 21st instalement of the Commonwealth Games. First held in 1930, as the British Empre Games, the event has been staged fout times in Australia. most recently in Melbourne in 2006. When the Commonwealth Games comes to the Gold Coast, Queensland in 2018, there will be more than thirty republics competing - from India and South Africa to Singapore and Samoa.
The Commonwealth of
Nations is a voluntary association which consists of 52 independent
nations that span Africa,
Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific and are diverse – they are amongst
the world’s largest, smallest, richest and poorest countries.
This association of states evolved
from the British Empire. The Commonwealth, unlike most international
organisations, does not rest on a written constitution, does not have a central
government, nor impose any rigid contractual obligations. With the London
Agreement on India in 1949 many member states have employed the Indian
precedent of continuing as a Commonwealth member after they have revoked their
allegiance to the Crown and become a republic.
Since 1949, the Commonwealth has
evolved into an association of states where many recognise the Crown only as
the head of the Commonwealth, not of their individual state. As the Commonwealth
has developed it has become increasingly subject to the will of the member countries
as a whole and not simply that of Britain as its most powerful member. Queen Elizabeth II is Head of the
Commonwealth although the choice of the next Head will be made collectively by Commonwealth leaders.
In
the lead up to the 1999 referendum on the Australian Republic, monarchists
firmly established a particular myth in many Australians minds. This is the
one that pretends that as a republic we won’t be able to continue to
participate in the Commonwealth Games. It needs to
be made clear that Australia will still be a Commonwealth country if
Australians vote to become a republic at some future date – whether during the
Queen’s reign or after it.
“88. Heads of Government also agreed that,
where an existing member changes its formal constitutional status, it should
not have to reapply for Commonwealth membership provided that it continues to
meet all the criteria for membership.”
If Australia had become a Republic before
2007, exactly the same process would have occurred – Australia would have
reapplied and been immediately readmitted. Since the 2007 Kampala Declaration,
of course, Australia wouldn't even need to reapply — it would simply continue
as a Commonwealth nation even after becoming a Republic.
It appears the next King of Australia is
very unpopular in Britain: 63%of those
surveyed do not want Charles to be King; and only 39% said they
trust the Prince. But because Britain is a monarchy, they don't get to decide, and neither
do we.
So, the Queen’s Birthday public holiday
is connected to a complete lack of community activity or acknowledgement and a
poll now tells us the British people have no faith in their next monarch.
This is all
absurd.
A new head of
state is inevitable within a few years - but an Australian head of state is not
inevitable.
Perhaps the
value of the Queen’s Birthday public holiday is to have time to quietly reflect
the future of our nation. If we don't do anything, we get King Charles III.
With the official announcement of the pregnancy of the
Duchess of Cambridge, it seems William and Kate will have an heir, a spare, and
one for the country.
Congratulations
to the British royal pair. The growing British royal family seems to be taking
a page out of the Princess Mary book and her Danish royal brood of four.
No doubt the
relentless celebrity that will surround the unborn prince or princess will
continue to add to the British royal stamp of approval. Nevertheless this royal
celebrity is an image dominated by an obsessive media and popular cultural
landscape, which treat royalty as entertainment rather than as a political
institution.
I hope one
day soon that any Australian child will have the opportunity and honour to
become an Australian Head of State, and not because he or she has had the
privilege to have been born into Britain’s royal family.
I look
forward to the day when Australia’s Head of State is determined by merit, not
birthright, and affirms Australia’s values as a free, fair, democratic,
multicultural nation.
Speech to
inaugural joint sitting of both Houses of the Australian Parliamentary Congress
President
of the Commonwealth of Australia
‘Our
Wattle Republic’
September
1 has many names. Some welcome it as spring’s dawn, a time to celebrate
nature’s renewal. For others it is Wattle Day — a time when the smells of
Spring are in the air and the vivid gold of the blossom is literally arresting.
Wattle Day is celebrated annually on the first day of spring, and captures
something crucial to the success of our new republic — a feeling for
country – for today is the
first day of our new republic, the Commonwealth of Australia.
A sprig of Australia's national
floral emblem, the golden wattle, Acacia pycnantha is traditionally
worn on the first day of spring. 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. In Australia, the wattles are the largest genus
of flowering plants. In Australia you could plant two or three different
wattles for every day of the year, and still have plenty left over, for
Australia has more acacia species than the year has days. These acacias are
extremely diverse and found in habitats from rainforest to arid lands.
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.
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.
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. 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. Like our people,
wattle has great diversity (with nearly 1,000 species) and resilience. It is a
unifying symbol for all Australians. There is no other symbol that says so much
about us and our land.
Because of its association with
the land and the care that indigenous, settler and modern day Australians have
for it, Wattle Day can be seen as an occasion to celebrate and honour the
shared earth. Respecting and caring for land, protecting its native flora and fauna,
and using wisely its water resources are major challenges to commit to as a
people. Australia's future is bound tightly with the health of Australia's
environment and land. As a living expression of land, wattle links us to the
earliest occupation of the Australian continent. Indigenous Australians used
wattle for thousands of years as a season marker (a sign that the whales were
coming), as a source of food, and the raw material of hunting and sound
instruments. This is part of wattle's wonderful heritage as a unifying symbol
of land, people and the nation - a symbol that has no unpleasant baggage.
Wattle celebrations first arose as
occasions when earlier generations of Australians stood up and said:
“I am from this land. This place is home."
The first known use of wattle as a meaningful
emblem in the Australian colonies was in Hobart Town in 1838 when a resident
suggested wearing a sprig of wattle to celebrate the golden jubilee of the
landing at Sydney Cove. There was in this seemingly small gesture a suggestion
of an independent Australia. At a regatta in 1842 to mark the anniversary of
Tasman's discovery of Van Diemen's Land, many of the celebrant's again wore a
sprig of wattle. The Golden Wattle was the first symbol of the Adelaide
Australian Natives' Association's 'Wattle Blossom League'. On Foundation Day,
26 January 1891, the Adelaide Australian Natives’ Association represented
itself with a Wattle Blossom Banner embroidered with Golden Wattle by its
ladies' branch.
But it was not until the beginning
of the twentieth century that an official Wattle Day was proclaimed after a
suggestion made by the naturalist Archibald Campbell in Sydney. Campbell's
suggestion led to a meeting to form a Wattle Day League which coordinated the
states into celebrating the first Wattle Day on 1 September 1910. The Wattle
Day League was a patriotic society in the vein of the Australian Natives'
Association. The day was a celebration of the unique land, people and
institutions of Australia, and was marked in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney
with activities including the planting of wattle trees in the school grounds,
decorating public sites with wattle and wearing wattle.
At the time the Sydney
Morning Herald wrote: "To the native born Australian the wattle
stands for home, country, kindred, sunshine and love - every instinct that the
heart deeply enshrines".
The celebration of the day continued until the beginning
of the First World War.
Wattle first appeared on
Australia’s Coat of Arms when the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette of 18
January 1913 promulgated a new Coat of Arms for Australia. During 1911
and 1912, Labor Prime Minister Andrew Fisher had taken a keen interest in the
complex question of national identity and set about to ‘Australianise’ our
government system and national symbols. Home-grown symbols, he knew in his
heart, were essential for a nation so young. Among the significant changes made
in the 1913 Coat of Arms was the inclusion of a spray of wattle as a background
feature and a Federation Star, and instead of a shield displaying the English
cross of St George, there was one showing the emblems of the six states. It is all the more appropriate that
Wattle is the background of our national Coat of Arms, as it has been here for
millennia. Wattle has welcomed us all — Indigenous, colonial and modern day
immigrants. Wattle has been the great witness to the entire Australian
story.
For many Australians when you
mention wattle they don’t immediately think of the spray around the Coat of
Arms, or the design embedded in the order of Australia. Rather the first
thought is the last line of Henry Lawson’s stanza from Freedom on the
Wallaby.
So we must fly
a rebel flag,
As others did
before us,
And we must
sing a rebel song
And join in
rebel chorus.
We’ll make the
tyrant feel the sting
O’ those that
they would throttle;
They needn’t
say the fault is ours
If blood
should stain the wattle!
In 1891 the battle lines were drawn and action
spread across central Queensland shearing sheds and towns, from February 1891
until well into May and June. Henry Lawson’s poem was his comment on the 1891
shearers’ strike and represented the rebellious spirit of those times. Lawson
was writing about freedom and independence in Australia, and although he may
have alluded to "blood on the wattle" he was never a serious
advocate of armed revolution. His was more a call to address a sense of
injustice. 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.
In 2015, during his first National
Press Club Speech, the then 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 was 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 is a broad and inclusive symbol. It touches all levels of
society, from very early pioneers and World War I 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 has
journeyed with us in kitbags, pockets and letters to places that become
synonymous with our shared story, be they Gallipoli, Kokoda or Swiss canyons.Wattle
is a metaphor for innocence and hope, the constant promise of rebirth, that
simple and powerful beauty of the wattle flower — indigenous, Australian, unsullied
by the memory of war and destruction.
So, when the blaze of wattle
lights up the Australian landscape each year, let us all remember that the
wattle is a symbol of our land that unites us all. So, on this Wattle Day let
us all take a moment and reflect on the wattle flower which symbolises an
egalitarian, classless, free citizenry. Our new Commonwealth of Australia is
a fully and truly independent Australia, a republican nation that determines its
own future, a nation that protects its citizens, its environment and its
future. A country that is fair and free.
We're hitting the streets to spread
the message that Australia should have an Australian as head of state - and
we need your help.
The plan is simple: we are holding street stalls across the country where
we'll ask people to sign up as supporters. The more people we reach,
the more interest we build for the republic. The campaign is growing but the
momentum depends on supporters like you. That's why we'd like you to come along
and give us a hand:
It's time for Turnbull and Shorten to unite on Australia becoming a republic.
The political landscape in Australia is definitely changing. The push for a republic has gone from strength to strength in recent years with support from a resurgent membership, the majority of federal parliamentarians, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten brought the campaign for an
Australian republic to a new peak at the Royal Exhibition Building in
Melbourne last night, 29 July 2017, as the Australian Republic
Movement’s guest of honour and keynote speaker at its Gala Dinner.
National chair of the ARM Peter FitzSimons said the event demonstrated the broad bipartisan support within the community:
“I daresay The Royal Exhibition Building won't have seen such an
inspiring display of Australian nationhood in its arches since it hosted
the first meeting of the Australian Parliament.”
Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten said,
when speaking of his long-term support for an Australian republic, that
he appreciated the historic opportunity to address the Movement and its
supporters:
"I’ve always been a passionate republican and I’m looking forward
to continuing to press the case for an Australian republic. We can get
this done."
The Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, the location of the first
gathering of the Federal Parliament in 1901, will now become known for
another pivotal moment in Australia’s history — the biggest gathering of
Australian republicans from across the country.
Earlier that day, Bill Shorten had announced
at the Queensland ALP State Conference in Townsville that Australians
would vote in a plebiscite on becoming a republic within the first term
of a future Labor government. He stated that, if Labor wins the next
election, a Shorten government would appoint a minister with direct
responsibility for advancing the republic debate.
The Royal Exhibition Building
was erected for the Melbourne International Exhibition, 1880-1881. As a
"Palace of Industry", it displayed the technologies and achievements of
the mechanised age. Huge temporary halls housed exhibits of the latest
products from more than 30 nations. Pianos, typewriters, lawnmowers,
electric lights, carriages and decorative homewares were all on display.
Public taste in Melbourne was changed forever.
The 1880 International Exhibition was the greatest show the city had ever seen and attracted over 1 million visitors. A second, even larger world fair, the centennial International Exhibition,
was staged there in 1888. The Royal Exhibition Building is the only
surviving "Palace of Industry" from a 19th Century world fair on its
original site. It is still in use as an exhibition venue.
The Great Hall has been the scene of many events, but it was probably
most crowded and most popular during the two international exhibitions,
1880-81 and 1888-1889. The Melbourne International Exhibition of
1880-81 attracted more than 1.3 million people over eight months. The Carlton Gardens
were the scene of trysts and assignations, gossip and introductions, as
friends, families and lovers met to buy their tickets and stroll
through the vast halls.
On 9 May 1901, the Melbourne Exhibition Building hosted the opening
of the first Federal Parliament of Australia, following the
inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January. After the
official opening, the Federal Parliament moved to the Victorian State
Parliament House, while the Victorian Parliament moved to the Exhibition
Building for the next 26 years.
The campaign for an Australian republic is uniting Australians from
across the political divide. The address by Bill Shorten at the
2017 Pathway to a Republic Gala Dinner follows on from a passionate
keynote speech in support of a republic by Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull at the ARM Gala Dinner in December 2016.
There Prime Minister Turnbull proudly declared,
“I am an Australian and proud to say so. Our head of state should be someone who can say the same.”
On Saturday, 17 December 2016, in the Great Hall at the University of
Sydney, Prime Minister Turnbull helped the Australian Republican
Movement celebrate its 25th anniversary.
Australian Republican Movement national chair Peter FitzSimons said the dinner would “... honour those who’ve got us to this point” and Mr Turnbull was “at the forefront of our founding fathers and mothers”.
He continued:
“The dinner is also a moment for the ARM to outline its vision
for the future. A vision in which Australia takes the lead and completes
the journey to full and final independence.”
Turnbull, who co-founded the Australian Republican Movement 25 years
before, had previously said he did not believe Australians would support
a republic during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. It was here that he
outlined a road map toward an Australian head of state. If you haven't
seen it, you can read the speech here.
However, PM Turnbull also made it clear in his speech that he considered himself an Elizabethan and believed that this journey should not begin until the end
of the Queen's reign. With respect to Prime Minister Turnbull, as a
long-term avowed republican, his use of the term "Elizabethan" is
incongruous.
Professor John Warhurst has reflected that Turnbull will now be lampooned for his use of this phrase:
“... just as the monarchist Sir Robert Menzies is often held up
to ridicule for his gushing address to the Queen during her 1963 royal
tour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Canberra. To express his
admiration for the Queen, Menzies famously quoted the lines from Thomas
Ford's poem "There is a Lady Sweet and Kind" which read "I did but see
her passing by and yet I love her till I die."
Bill Shorten’s 29 July 2017 republican statements are in line with
the timelines proposed by the Australian Republican Movement. This
includes a plebiscite in 2020 that asks the people of Australia a very
simple question:
“Should Australia have an Australian head of state?”
With 2020 marking 250 years since Captain James Cook landed surely it must be time for us to stand on our own two feet.
Perhaps, in the words of Paul Kelly, not “before too long”.
This is the second year
Queensland no longer has a Queen’s Birthday public holiday in June — and
no one seems to notice it’s gone.
AROUND AUSTRALIA, it is the Queens’s Birthday weekend — except in
Western Australia and Queensland. The Queen’s Birthday public holiday is held in most Australian states and territories on the second Monday in June.
As I wrote last year, Queensland became a little less "Queenie" with the move
by the State Government of the Queen’s Birthday holiday from the second
Monday in June to the first Monday in October in 2016. This year,
Queensland will hold the holiday on 2 October. In WA, it will be 25
September.
After the election of the LNPNewman Government in 2012, until its shock electoral loss in January 2015, there was a steady output of ideological revisionism aimed at bolstering the concept of monarchy in Queensland.
During 2011, there had been widespread consultation by the Bligh Labor Government on changing the public holiday system in Queensland. It was agreed, in 2012, that Labour Day would remain in May
and the Queen’s Birthday public holiday would move from June to the
first weekend in October, while retaining a one-off Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee public holiday in June 2012.
All this was thrown out the window later
in 2012 when legislation was passed through the Queensland Parliament
by the newly elected LNP Newman Government to move the 2013 Labour Day
public holiday from the historically traditional 1 May to
the first Monday in October and the Queen’s Birthday public holiday
back to its previous June timing. The change in attitude towards the
public holiday timetabling suggested the Newman Government was
determined to take a conservative monarchical stand.
Labour Day has special significance
for Queensland because of its links to events in the labour movement of
the late 19th Century. The first weekend in May has been of major
cultural and historical significance for the union movement in
Queensland ever since the state’s first Labour Day procession – and one
of the first in the world – took place in Barcaldine on 1 May 1891.
The Labour Day public holiday has been celebrated by workers in
Queensland on the first Monday in May since 1901 and is deeply ingrained
in Queensland’s history as a day to recognise workers’ rights.
With the election of the Palaszczuk Labor Government
in Queensland in 2015, one of the first actions was changing the
Queen’s Birthday public holiday for 2016 to the first Monday in October
and restoring the Labour Day public holiday to the first Monday in May.
The push for a republic has gone from strength to strength
in recent years with support from a resurgent membership, the majority
of federal parliamentarians, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. On Australia Day 2016, Australia's
premiers and chief ministers made public declarations supporting an Australian head of state. The Australian Republic Movement has now confirmed
most Federal MPs and senators want to ditch the monarchy. Sydney’s
North Shore has a reputation for being home to staunch monarchists, but a
few days ago every elected politician in that area from State and
Federal politics was asked where they stood on the question of Australia
becoming a republic. In short, if it was up to this patch of
Australia, we’d be saying hello to an Aussie head of state any day now.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will bring the campaign for an
Australian republic to a new peak, as the Australian Republic Movement’s
guest of honour and keynote speaker at its Gala Dinner on 29 July 2017.
The Pathway to a Republic dinner
in 2017 will bring together supporters of a republic from across the
country at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne — the location of
the first gathering of the Federal Parliament. Chair of the Australian
Republic Movement Peter FitzSimons said the event demonstrated the broad bipartisan support within the community.
When the Lord Chamberlain called an emergency meeting of the British
Royal Household a few weeks ago, the French media quickly announced that
Prince Philip had died and the world expected the worst. Happily, it
was a false alarm. However, it did drive home the fragility of the
status quo and the fact that the Queen recently turned 91. There is no
point denying that the day fast approaches when she will no longer be
the Queen. When that happens, there is a plan
that will swing into action with the uttering of a secret code from the
palace. We will automatically and almost immediately have a new monarch
as our head of state.
The next British monarch will be a King — most probably King
Charles. And it will be decided not by our own deliberate and
independent choice, but by laws of the United Kingdom: the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement
(1701) as amended by the UK Parliament in 2010. Moreover, according to
the laws of Royal Succession, our new monarch can only be a natural
(non-adopted), legitimate descendant of Sophia, Electress of Hanover,
and must be in communion with the Church of England. Under the current
system, no Australian could ever qualify to the highest office in our
country. We currently have no choice in the matter. It will just happen
to us, regardless of what we might think. We will simply wake up to the
news.
The Prime Minister has said that the proper time to consider the
issue of the Republic is upon the Queen's demise. Some say it is
disrespectful or morbid to talk about the Queen's passing. I think
that's wrong. It is too late. It will allow something enormous to just
happen to us while we sit back passively, unable to do anything about
it.
The Queen’s Birthday weekend in June in Queensland has slipped away
quietly without anyone commenting that it has gone, nor querying why it
now pops up in early October for no apparent reason. Perhaps this
attitude of irrelevance towards celebrating the Queen’s big day each
year is a reflection of the larger attitude towards the British monarchy
within our every day lives.
