Commonwealth Day and the sound of crickets

So, a few days ago, was Commonwealth Day. Monday, 10/3/2025 was meant to be a day of observance for the approximately one billion people of the 56 member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. However, the only activity connected to Commonwealth Day appears to be the British royal family attending a church service in a different hemisphere on the other side of the world.

Commonwealth Day Reception at Marlborough House, the home of the Commonwealth Secretariat

The 2020 Commonwealth Day Service was famously the last official public event for Prince Harry before leaving Britain for North America to take his journey towards his desired financial independence.

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey on March 9, 2020 in London

In Australia, there were public holidays on 10 March 2025 that coincided with Commonwealth Day, such as Canberra Day in the A.C.T., Labour Day in Victoria, Adelaide Cup Day in South Australia and Eight-hour Day in Tasmania. Yet nowhere in any Australian media though did there appear any discussion on Commonwealth Day. Cue sound of crickets chirping.

In Australia the only reference to 2025 Commonwealth Day seemed to be an announcement from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for all Australian government departments and associated portfolio agencies to fly or display the Australian National Flag all day. That’s it!

Reminds me of the total lack of celebrations in Australia for the Queen’s 2012 Diamond Jubilee (and Platinum Jubilee!). 

All this makes a mockery of the Commonwealth Secretariat establishing as this year’s theme ‘Together We Thrive”.

Australia’s lack of interest in Commonwealth Day is a clear reflection of our desire to break from the royals and stand on our own two feet – by becoming a republic.

 

Abbott’s Knightmare ‘Captain’s Pick’ – 10 years on

Australia Day 2025 was the 10th anniversary of Prime Minister Tony Abbott using the Australia Day’s honour list to award Prince Philip with a resurrected Australian knighthood.

Editorials of newspapers across the country on 25 January 2015 slammed Prime Minister Abbott’s bizarre decision to hand Prince Philip a Knighthood, an imperial bauble, labelling the move “ludicrous” and “flabbergasting”.

On 27 March 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the former director of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, had announced his intention to facilitate the return of imperial honours for Australians.

At the time, the PM said he believed this was: “… an important grace note in our national life.”

Tony Abbott’s ‘Captain’s Pick’ of Prince Philip for an Australian Knighthood on the day we should be celebrating Australia’s national identity resulted in the people of Australia being dragged by our elected leader into a cultural cringe so remarkable that it was almost beyond comprehension.

Abbott’s ‘Captain’s Pick’ of Prince Philip was to become a ‘Knightmare’ that has never been repeated since.

There’s no place for any Downton Abbey play acting in Australia. Aristocratic titles and imperial baubles have no place here. They belong over 9000 kms away on the other side of the world with the North and the Past. 

Henry Lawson wrote true in his 1887 'A Song of the Republic':  

Henry Lawson

Sons of the South, awake! arise!
       Sons of the South, and do.
Banish from under your bonny skies
Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies.
Making a hell in a Paradise
       That belongs to your sons and you.

Sons of the South, make choice between
       (Sons of the South, choose true),
The Land of Morn and the Land of 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.

Sons of the South, your time will come —
       Sons of the South, 'tis near —
The "Signs of the Times", in their language dumb,
Foretell it, and ominous whispers hum
Like sullen sounds of a distant drum,
       In the ominous atmosphere.

Sons of the South, aroused at last!
       Sons of the South are few!
But your ranks grow longer and deeper fast,
And ye shall swell to an army vast,
And free from the wrongs of the North and Past
       The land that belongs to you.

Thankfully, for the past 10 years, it has been Goodnight to knights and dames. 

The Bushwackers – Republic Day