Labour Day is here to stay

The Queensland Government is trying to kill off Labour Day by moving the public holiday from its traditional May date to October, however it will be business as usual for the Queensland union movement on Sunday, 5 May 2013.



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 took place in Barcaldine on 1 May 1891 and the Labour Day public holiday has been celebrated by workers in Queensland on the first Monday in May since 1901. It is deeply ingrained in Queensland’s history as a day to recognise workers’ rights.

During 2011, there had been widespread consultation on changing the holiday system and it was agreed that Labour Day would remain in May and the Queen’s Birthday public holiday would move from June to October.

At the time, Premier Anna Bligh said all holidays, except for the Queen’s Birthday, marked significant dates and were punctuated with official ceremonies or significance:

“Unlike other public holidays, it’s not celebrated on a date that is particularly meaningful.”

The Queen’s birthday public holiday originated in 1912 to observe the birthday of King George V on 3 June. Over the years, Queensland, along with most other states, has continued to observe the Queen’s birthday in June even though the actual birthday of Queen Elizabeth II is 21 April. In Western Australia, the Queen’s birthday public holiday is held in either September or October. The Queen’s birthday is observed as a mark of respect to the sovereign but is not widely celebrated in community events like other public holidays.

Other public holidays are on dates of significance. Australia Day (26 January). Tick. Anzac Day (25 April). Tick. Labour Day (1 May). Tick. Easter. Christmas. Tick. Tick. Queen’s Birthday…errrr? It’s not celebrated on the correct date and there is no official ceremony or community engagement around it. However, all this was thrown out the window last year when legislation was passed through the Queensland Parliament by the LNP Newman Government to move the Labour Day public holiday to the first Monday in October and the Queen’s Birthday public holiday back to its previous June timing.


The history of Labour Day in Australia spans over 150 years. It is an important annual event that commemorates the granting of the eight-hour working day for Australians and remembers those who struggled and succeeded to ensure decent and fair working conditions in Australia. During the mid to late 1800s, the working day was long and arduous, where some employees would work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. Many Australians saw the need for better working conditions and in the 1850s there was a strong push for this. On 21 April 1856, stonemasons at the University of Melbourne marched to Parliament House to push for an eight-hour working day. An agreement with employers for a 48-hour week was eventually reached and Australian workers welcomed the new eight-hour day. A victory march was held on 12 May 1856 that year and each year after that. In 1856, the new work regulations were recognized in New South Wales, followed by Queensland in 1858 and South Australia in 1873. In 1874, Tasmania joined the other states in adopting the shorter eight-hour working day. In 1879, the Victorian Government made one further step towards better conditions for employees by proclaiming a paid public holiday that year. However, while a change was made to the hours worked each day, the five day work week we enjoy today took almost a century longer to be adopted finally in 1948.

In Queensland, the first Labour Day celebration took place in Brisbane on 16 March 1861 and was essentially a celebration by a small number of skilled building workers who had recently achieved an eight-hour working day. The date of the event was chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the first workers achieving the eight hour day in Queensland. For more than 20 years, the bulk of workers who did not enjoy an eight hour working day were excluded from the celebrations and the focus was on celebrating trade union achievements. The small number of elite Queensland trade unionists who participated in the eight hour day celebrations showed little sympathy for their fellow workers who laboured in excess of eight hours.
The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the Americans. In 1886, they decided that May 1 should be the day of universal work stoppage. On this day, 200,000 of them left their work and demanded the eight hour day. The historic strike of 1 May 1886 was a culmination of a concerted struggle. Chicago was the major industrial centre of the USA. Police attacked striking workers from the McCormack Harvester Co., killing six.


On 4 May 1886, at a demonstration in Haymarket Square to protest the police brutality, a bomb exploded in the middle of a crowd of police killing eight of them. The police arrested eight anarchist trade unionists claiming they threw the bombs. To this day, the subject is still one of controversy. The question remains whether the bomb was thrown by the workers at the police or whether one of the police’s own agent provocateurs dropped it in their haste to retreat from charging workers.

In what was to become one of the most infamous show trials in America in the nineteenth century, but certainly not to be the last of such trials against radical workers, the State of Illinois tried the anarchist workingmen for fighting for their rights as much as being the actual bomb throwers. Whether the anarchist workers were guilty or innocent was irrelevant — they were agitators, fomenting revolution and stirring up the working class, and they had to be taught a lesson. Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were found guilty and executed by the State of Illinois.

In Paris in 1889, the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International) declared 1 May an international working-class holiday in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Martyrs. The red flag became the symbol of the blood of working-class martyrs in their battle for worker’s rights.
In light of the labour movement’s successful push for an eight-hour day, a large May Day meeting was held in Melbourne on 1 May 1890. Other Australian capital cities also held May Day meeting at the same time. On 1 May 1890, the Brisbane Workers editorial stated:

May Day, this is our May Day, the by-gone jubilation of our forefathers for the reconquering by the bright sunshine of the bitter northern winter, the new-born celebration of the passing of the workers’ winter of discontent. In Germany, in Austria, in Belgium, in France, all through Europe, in the United Kingdom and in the great English speaking republic across the Pacific, millions of workers are gathering at this hour to voice the demands of Labor for fair conditions of laboring. Never in all history was there such a meeting.

The spirit of the activists and early workers organisers is summed up in Bernard O’Dowd’s poem, May Day where he calls for Australians to stand up united and maintain their rights to an eight-hour work day.

Come Jack, our place is with the ruck
On the open road today,
Not with the tepid “footpath sneak”
Or with the wise who stop away.

A straggling, tame procession, perhaps,
A butt for burgess scorn;
Its flags are ragged sentiments,
And its music’s still unborn.

Though none respectable are here,
And trim officials ban,
Our duty, Jack, is not with them,
But here with hope and Man.

The Labour Day date was moved from May to the second Monday in March in some parts of Australia after World War II. Since 1948, Labour Day in Western Australia has been observed on the first Monday in March and marks the granting of the eight hour working day to Western Australians. For a large section of the Brisbane labour movement, it remained important that the Labour Day celebrations be changed to enable participation by all Queensland workers and that the date of the procession from the traditional one on 1 March to 1 May. The main arguments for changing the date of the celebrations was to make them part of the international campaign, begun by the International Labour Congress in 1889, to make 1 May an official workers holiday around the world. This campaign was given a major boost when, on 1 May 1891, hundreds of striking bush workers held Australia’s first May Day procession through the streets of Barcaldine where their leaders wore blue sashes and they carried banners and the Eureka flag. It was reported that cheers were given for “the eight-hour day”.

Henry Lawson wrote “Freedom on the Wallaby” to mark the day:

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 tyrants feel the sting
O’those that they would throttle;
They needn’t say the fault is ours
If blood should stain the wattle.

From May 1893, the holding of Labour Day and May Day in Queensland has proceeded hand-in-hand. Unfortunately, over time, the reasons for shifting Labour Day so that it corresponded to May Day have been forgotten. But, equally clearly, the now largely forgotten campaign to link the two had made Labour Day in Queensland a significant occasion, when not just the eight-hour working day is celebrated, but also the international solidarity of labour. In fact, Queensland unionists, until now, were almost alone in celebrating Labour Day on or around May Day, as most other states still time their celebrations to coincide with anniversaries of eight-hour day victories.

Labour Day, like Anzac Day, is a day when we remember the sacrifices our forebears made — the mateship, the loyalty and the determination to build and protect the freedom and rights we now enjoy. Both are also occasions when we recognise the ongoing struggles of today and thank those standing beside us in the fray. Today, we celebrate those workers and union delegates who stand alongside their mates and colleagues to preserve and better the working conditions of all Australians. For like Anzac Day, Labour Day is – above and beyond its historical significance – a day in which all Australians can celebrate our egalitarian society, our innate sense of fairness and equity, and our willingness to campaign side by side for a better world.

It is the day we celebrate the winding back of the exploitation and oppressive working hours that were the norm in the early nineteenth century during the Industrial Revolution. It is a day we remember the efforts of the labour movement which brought us the eight hour day and over the ensuing decades of struggle such basic advances as minimum wage levels, safety in the workplace and the right – bar a brief return to the industrial relations Dark Ages during the Howard era – to bargain as a collective.

Callow fanatical monarchist Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie is reported to have used doctored survey figures to justify moving Labour Day rather than the irrelevant Queen’s Birthday holiday.

For Labour Day is not a celebration of militant trade unionism. It is not a conga-line of left-wing ratbags winding their way through the streets chanting slogans calling for the downfall of capitalism. Labour Day, particularly in today’s world – where ordinary hard-working people are increasingly left bleeding on the economic roadside from collateral damage inflicted by the global recession – it is about family, freedom, and a fair go. It is about empowerment in a world where individuals still too often have little control over their own destiny when it comes to the workplace.

So celebrate Labour Day. Celebrate trade unions, freedom of association, vigorous debate and working families. For that is the sum of us.

(This is an edited version of the 2013 Alex Macdonald Lecture Labour Day: Family, freedom and a fair go. The origins to Queensland’s Labour Day and the recent shift of date to be delivered to the Brisbane Labour History Association on 1 May 2013 by Dr Glenn Davies)

Face of the Republic is back

It’s been twenty years since Paul Keating announced the establishment of the Republic Advisory Committee on 28 April 1993 and appointed Malcolm Turnbull as its chair. Turnbull is back campaigning again for an Australian republic and on 10 May 2013 will speak at an ARM dinner


Even though Malcolm 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. On 10 May 2013, Turnbull will have star billing at an ARM fund-raising dinner at Lilyfield, Sydney, where diners will witness a ”conversation about our Australian identity” between him and Geoff Gallop, the current chairman of ARM and a former Labor premier of Western Australia.

Throughout most of the 1990s Turnbull led and funded the Australian Republican Movement. However, after the 1999 republican referendum defeat and his resignation as ARM national chairman, Turnbull has kept a low profile on the republican issue. In 2004, he was elected as the Liberal Federal Member for Wentworth. It has been one of the curious matchings of recent federal politics that on the Federal Liberal front bench is Turnbull and one of his main opponents, the former head of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, Tony Abbott.

One can only assume that since he was first elected, Turnbull has been required to never acknowledge publicly his republican support in order to appear a loyal member of the Abbott team. However since he delivered the 2012 ‘George Winterton Lecture’ at the University of Western Australia in September 2012 titled “Republic Virtues: Truth, Leadership and Responsibility”, Turnbull appears to have decided to make his republican position public again, and in so doing differentiate himself from Abbott in the Battle for Ideas. Predictably, the Australian’s for Constitutional Monarchy national convener David Flint immediately went on the attack breathlessly wanting to know

Why has Malcolm Turnbull decided to demonstrate to the world that the frontbench is divided on the fundamental question of a politicians’ republic‘?

The answer is obvious. The movement for an Australian republic is again on the rise. Malcolm Turnbull can see that the ARM’s grassroots national campaign is hitting a chord across Australia and he wants to be a part of it.

On 13 March 1993, Paul Keating won “the sweetest victory of all” when he was elected as Prime Minister of Australia with a mandate to pursue his program for an Australian republic.

In his Engagement. Australia faces the Asia-Pacific (2000) Keating described how he

…put the republic on the political agenda by proposing the constitutional change in the policy speech for the 1993 election, For a party seeking so fundamental a change, this was the only and proper thing to do. It allowed the community to consider the subject before casting its vote.

In the policy speech, after his election win he promised to set up a bipartisan committee to examine the complex constitutional issues involved and for it to report to the government.

On 28 April 1993, at the annual dinner of the Evatt Foundation, Keating announced the establishment of a nine-member Republic Advisory Committee:

…a broadly-based committee of eminent Australians, including representatives of the States, to develop a discussion paper which considers the options for a Federal Republic of Australia … it would be the intention that as a result of this committee’s deliberations and the public discussion that would follow, the Australian people would be in a position to decide by referendum later in the decade whether Australia should become a republic by the year 2001.

The terms of reference of the Republic Advisory Committee were to to examine the constitutional and legal issues that would arise were Australia to become a republic. The Committee was asked to consider issues such as:

ARM chair Geoff Gallop

• A name for a new elected head of state

• The method of selection for the head of state

• What powers he or she should possess

• The constitutional amendments and legal changes required to replace the Queen of Australia and Her Representative, the Governor-General of Australia by an elected head of state.

The nine-member bipartisan Republican Advisory Committee was appointed in May 1993 and consulted widely around Australia. The RAC was chaired by Malcolm Turnbull and included Nick Greiner and Naomi Dougal, who were prominent members of the Liberal Party, as well as constitutional experts such as Professor George Winterton and Dr John Hirst. Between May and October 1993 the RAC toured around town halls and community centres throughout Australia listening to the views of ordinary Australians.
One hundred years before the Republic Advisory Committee began stumping around the country Edmund Barton was holding meetings throughout New South Wales and with border Victorians to keep alive the idea of Federation. By the end of May 1893 there were 15 branches of the Federation League in the valley of the Murray. Quick & Garran recorded the Australian Federation League pledged,

…to advance the cause of Australian Federation by an organisation of citizens owning no class distinction or party influence, and using its best energies to assist Parliamentary action, from whatever source proceeding, calculated to further the common aim of Australian patriotism.

Malcolm Turbull

Barton’s focus was on federation of the Australian colonies and succeeded in making the federation movement appear popular. The Federal Leagues were to occupy the representative place of “the people” in the federation debates.

The ARM’s 2013 strategy, is to build support for a republic from the grassroots by talking about national identity, rather than focusing on how to select the head of state. The current campaign has been touring around the country as did the Republican Advisory Committee in 1993, as well as Edmund Barton in 1892 and 1893 when he was trying to keep alive the idea of Federation in the days after the 1891 National federal Convention. Edmund Barton’s actions in keeping alive the federation movement eventually saw him elected as the first Prime Minister of Australia.

Perhaps Malcolm Turnbull’s actions in helping to keep alive the republican movement will see him become the first President of the Republic of Australia.

Uni clubs stir up talk of a Republic

Republic Clubs are forming at Universities across Australia, refuting claims young Australians are uninterested in an Australian Republic.

IN RECENT DAYS, new Republic Clubs have held stalls on university campuses at Australian National University, University of Western Australia and University of Queensland, where hundreds of students have shown a renewed enthusiasm for an Australian republic. Republic Clubs are also forming in coming weeks at the University of Western Sydney, University of Adelaide, Macquarie University, University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney.

ARM chair Geoff Gallop visiting the UWA Republic Club in Perth on Friday, 22 February 2013.

The university “O Week” season has seen the establishment of many new Republic Clubs and the generation of a great deal of interest. 

Sera Yilmaz, for instance, is a young woman who wants to make a difference for Australia. She represented Australia at the Model United Nations at Harvard in 2012, has just graduated in Law and is pursuing postgraduate studies on equity in Australia’s immigration program. And, like students across Australia this month, she is setting up a Republic Club at her university, the University of Western Sydney.

“I am passionate about Australia. We have such a strong sense of fairness, such a vibrant, multicultural society. We have such potential in the future. That’s why I believe Australia should celebrate its identity as a republic.”

Sera is chair of the new University of Western Sydney Republic Club and will be signing up new members at “O Week” stalls at Parramatta, Bankstown, Campbelltown and Penrith campuses, 25-28 February 2013.

On Friday, 25 January 2013, the University of Queensland Republic Club held an Australia Day party in the Great Court as its inaugural AGM. Ably led by Jacqueline Rodgers, an undergraduate student in International Relations/Chinese, the meeting included the official adoption of the club constitution and voting for executive positions. Despite it pouring rain and still being university holidays, they managed a fantastic turnout and easily made quorum for affiliation.

On 20 February 2013, the UQ Republic Club had a Market Day Stall during O’Week which attracted 300 visitors, students, staff and MPs, with overwhelming support for an Australian republic.

On 29 December, 2012 it was announced that, with the help of the new VPs for Campus Culture, the UQ Student Union had approved the application for UQRA to become an affiliated member of Clubs & Societies. This was the final hurdle in a long battle to have the UQRA re-affiliated at UQ.

The University of Queensland campus has been involved in republican movement activity since the early 1990s. On 12 December 1993, the Australian Republican Movement was launched in Brisbane at the Sheraton Hotel. A public meeting was held on 21 April 1994 at the Abel Smith Lecture Theatre at UQ and the Inaugural Dinner of the Queensland branch of the ARM was held on 3 December 1994 at Cromwell College, University of Queensland.

On 4 October 1994, the newly formed UQ Republican Association invited the Federal Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch to address the issue at the Axon Room. More than 50 people gathered inside and outside to hear the Attorney-General speak. This had been organised by the inaugural UQRA President, Johanna Sing. In 1994, she was an eighteen year old Arts/Law student who had long been interested in politics. At seventeen, she had been the youth representative of the ARM in Queensland. She was present at the launch in December 1993 and spoke at the first public meeting of the Queensland Branch at UQ in April 1994. In September 1994, she attended the Young Leaders’ Conference in Melbourne at which representatives of all political parties and various interest groups debated many issues, including the republic. By O’Week 1996, the UQ Republican Association was established on the UQ campus.

Throughout the 1990s and first half of 2000s, the ARM was a presence on UQ campus, particularly during O’Week. This all changed with the student union elections in 2008. From this time on the ‘Fresh Party’ actively stopped the registration of the UQ Republican Club. However, in late 2012, this changed when the LNP aligned ‘Fresh Party’ was investigated.

Jacqueline Rodgers: new President, UQ Republic Club in centre

The 2012 UQ student election sparked protests and accusations of rigging after ‘Fresh’, which includes mostly Liberal National Party members, was accused of rigging the election by changing the rules on registering a party, without giving their opponents enough time to comply with the changes. There was widespread protesting by students over the move. In September 2012, University of Queensland ordered an independent audit, which investigated the finances, regulations and processes of the union after concerns were raised about the ‘transparency’ of the student union election process won by the incumbent Fresh party. The findings were delivered to the UQ student union on Wednesday, 30 January 2013 with a request for a response by 22 February.

UQ vice-chancellor Professor Peter Hoj stated:

“We believe the audit findings should be communicated to the public by the union soon and no later than early March”.

Student politics has long been the playground of budding party apparatchiks keen to try out dirty tricks, however now that the future LNP campaign managers have been removed and a level-playing field appears to have returned the students of 2013 have the opportunity to engage with the ideas presented to them by the UQRA.

It’s time for a new conversation about Australia, our identity and our responsibility to take the future in our hands as a fully independent nation. It is heartening to see young Australians all around Australia wrestling with these ideas. To continue this conversation go to Young Republic Student Forum on Facebook.

Queensland LNP continues to spin backwards

With the anticipated birth of a royal heir in 2013, the Queensland Government is going into forelock tugging hyper-drive especially Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie.


RECENTLY, Bob Ellis wrote in Independent Australia that

Campbell Newman is doing what conservatives always do in Australia, cynically changing the rules to retain their grip on power.

Since the election of the Queensland LNP Newman Government on 24 March 2012 there has been a steady output of ideological revisionism aimed at bolstering the concept of monarchy in Queensland.
These high tea warriors have:

• changed the Queensland government logo back to the Queensland Coat-of-Arms;
• named the new Supreme Court after the current British monarch;
• moved Labour Day public holiday from the historically traditional 1 May to the first Monday in October and returned the Queen’s Birthday Holiday to June;
• proposed changing Senior Counsel back to Queen’s Counsel (QC); and
• insisted Queensland pass individual legislation to ratify the royal succession change rather than a blanket federal approach.

The hand behind these changes appears to be the Queensland LNP Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie, the second-term Member for Kawana who turns 31 on 25 January 2013.

On 9 July 2012, I reflected in Independent Australia on the first 100 days since the Newman LNP government was elected in Queensland. I wrote at the time:

It’s worth remembering the ALP interregnum came to power in 1989 with the execution of the Bjelke-Petersen government. Just over 22 years later, the conservative Restoration has begun moving the ideological clock back by changing Senior Counsel back to Queen’s Counsel and revisiting moving the Labour Day public holiday to late in the year rather than the Queen’s Birthday holiday.

At the end of this article I wondered what the next 100 days of the conservative Restoration would bring to Queensland:

Perhaps all state schools will be required to hang a picture of the Queen in their school hall (or principal’s office) or the playing of the royal national anthem will resume in cinemas before the feature. Goodness knows.

As the Newman LNP government come close to the end of their first year in office it seems the ideological clock continues to spin backwards.

But how much support is there for the Queensland LNP Government showing its monarchist colours in Queensland?

On 6 February 2012, Queen Elizabeth II marked 60 years since her ascension to the throne; at the time, I wrote that it appeared most ordinary Australians couldn’t care less. The Australian Monarchist League had been trying to raise interest in celebrating the Diamond Jubilee in Australia since 2009 but no one seemed to be interested. It seemed the monarchists appeared bemused and a little confused as to why there hadn’t been any action in Australia at a government level to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

In the week of the Diamond Jubilee, Jarrod Bleijie announced plans to reintroduce the title of Queen’s Counsel for senior barristers. The Newman State Government is showing its monarchist colours with Queensland set to become the first state in Australia to restore the title of Queen’s Counsel.  After nearly two decades of Senior Counsel, the state’s top barristers are expected to soon resume the old title, QC. The title QC dates back to the late 16^th century, when Sir Francis Bacon was appointed the first Queen’s Counsel.

When Queensland decided to dump the title in 1994, it was riding the wave of modernism that was sweeping though many Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries. It was replaced in many places with various permutations of Senior or State Counsel, with no apparent loss of efficiency or purpose. The Bar Council of the Queensland Bar Association has confirmed to the Attorney-General’s office its in-principle support for the proposal to recommence the appointment of QCs, and the matter is expected to go before Cabinet soon. On 6 June 2012, the Queensland Bar Association president Roger Traves SC acknowledged in a letter to members that some might view the move as pro-monarchist.
Traves commented:

The arguments against included that the stance was pro-monarchy.

This seems to have taken some members of the Bar Association by surprise, because it had not been an in-house issue for years and there was no public mention of any such proposals before or after the conservative Restoration. The announcement that Queensland senior lawyers would replace Senior Counsel (SC) with Queen’s Counsel (QC) was made by Jarrod Bleijie at the Supreme Court’s annual Christmas Greetings event in Brisbane on Wednesday, 12 December 2012.  This event came close on the heels of the official opening on 3 August 2012 of the new Brisbane’s new Supreme and District Courts by the Attorney-General, Premier, Governor and Chief Justice. These new courts were named by the Queensland LNP Newman Government: the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law.

In July 2012, the Premier’s Department confirmed the Queensland Government logo would be slowly phased out and replaced with Queensland’s official coat of arms on correspondence. The logo was introduced in April 2000 by the Beattie Government and was designed by architect Michael Bryce, the husband of Australia’s Governor General Quentin Bryce. It was commonly referred to by public servants as the “Beattie burger”, because the relaxed style of the logo looked like a hamburger with several chips or french fries sitting beside it.

The Queensland logos: everything old and outdated is new again.

The 2012 Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June was to be the last after the former Labor government shifted the Queen’s Birthday holiday to the first weekend of October, while retaining a one-off Queen’s Jubilee public holiday in June 2012. During 2011 there had been widespread consultation on changing the holiday system and it was agreed that Labour Day would remain in May. At the time Premier Anna Bligh said all holidays, except for the Queen’s Birthday, marked significant dates and were punctuated with official ceremonies or significance. Anna Bligh said:

Unlike other public holidays, it’s not celebrated on a date that is particularly meaningful.

However, Labour Day has special significance for Queensland because of its links to events in the labour movement of the late nineteenth century. All this was thrown out the window and legislation recently passed through the Queensland Parliament moving the Labour Day public holiday 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 suggests the Newman Government is determined to take an ideological stance against the union movement in favour of the British monarchy.

Thirty-five years ago, Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen sought to make Queen Elizabeth II not just Queen of Australia but also Queen of Queensland. It was an arcane attempt to thwart any attempt by Canberra to turn Australia into a federal republic.

At COAG in December 2012, Premier Campbell Newman drew on the ghost of Joh when he reserved Queensland’s right as a Sovereign State to amend its own laws regarding the change to the royal succession to allow a first-born daughter of Prince William to inherit the throne before any later-born sons. Rather than deferring to the Commonwealth to make this change, Newman and Bleijie insist that, because the states boast their own viceroys in the form of governors, then Queensland should be allowed to pass its own legislation. Theirs is a lone stand in refusing to refer state powers to the Commonwealth in an effort to maintain an individual relationship with the monarchy.

The Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie stated:

Given the longstanding ties and relationships between the Crown and States, it is appropriate the States should preserve this relationship through their own legislation.

The decision could ultimately throw a spanner in Commonwealth member nations achieving a unanimous decision so that royal succession laws can be changed. The Commonwealth’s ‘very loud and very clear’ legal advice was that there was one crown in Australia, represented by the Governor-General and state governors, not many crowns .

The LNP conservatives appear to be hoping that moving around the deckchairs and giving them royal names will help them retain their grip on power.
But all of this effort by Jarrod Bleijie and his high tea warriors will not be able to stop the rising demand for an Australian republic. Ultimately it simply makes them look foolish. King Canute couldn’t hold back the tide nor can the Life Member of the Australian Monarchist League, the Queensland LNP Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie.

Fourth National Republican Short Story Competition Winners Announced – 26 January 2013

In 2012 Australia’s speculative fiction writers were challenged to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic using the theme ‘defining Australian identity in a future Australian republic’.

The 2012 Judging Panel comprised Tom Keneally, Professor Brian Matthews and Professor John Warhurst.

Jennifer Morris has been awarded ‘First Prize’ in the Fourth National Republican Short Story Competition for ‘The Harvest’. After an initial career in nursing, Jennifer completed a University degree in Social Sciences, at the same time juggling work and raising children. Her daughters now have families of their own. In the last twelve months she has made time to pursue a long held passion for writing. This is the second short story competition she has entered. Jennifer and her husband have spent most of their married life in country Victoria and have great empathy and hopes for rural Australia.

Ingle Knight has been awarded ‘Second Prize’ in the Fourth National Republican Short Story Competition for ‘When the Ice Melts’. A prize-winning playwright and actor, Ingle is currently writing a play for Black Swan State Theatre Company about the political origins of the Gallipoli campaign. In 2012 he was the winner of the Richard Burton Playwriting Award. He has a PhD from Murdoch University and lives in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. ‘When the Ice Melts’ is his first work of prose fiction.

Terry Byrnes has been awarded ‘Third Prize’ in the Fourth National Republican Short Story Competition for ‘Once’. Terry is an Honours graduate in Social Science from Macquarie University. He began writing in earnest while he was there. On being informed of the award Terry said “playing a small part in the inevitable march towards republicanism gives me a sense of great pride”. Terry works in the Aboriginal justice industry and is an unfailing republican.

The Fourth National Republican Short Story Competition has continued to foster the emerging Australian republican fiction genre. Before every great invention and before every great journey is the idea. Without ideas and imagination, we are all trapped in the past. The short stories ‘The Harvest’, ‘When the Ice Melts’, and ‘Once’ are exercises in imagination and help to lead the way into possible republican futures.

The Australian Republican Movement congratulates the winners of this year’s competition and extends its thanks to all entrants. The National Republican Short Story Competition will be run again in 2013.

For more information contact: Dr Glenn Davies, National Republican Fiction Convener, Australian Republican Movement, PO Box 87, Geebung, QLD, 4034 E: fiction@republic.org.au or http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com.au

The Republican Island of Tasmania

While the Australian Republican Movement was out and about in Tasmania throughout October and November talking to everyday Australians, Prince Charles and his wife skipped around a few states talking to almost no-one.

THE ARM HAS BEEN RETHINKING the way forward to a republican future. In October 2012, they announced they were starting a new campaign for an Australian republic.

The rebranded website described the purpose to the new campaign:

‘We want to get Australians talking about us, our country – and the future we will share, together. This campaign is about our identity, as Australians, the way we see ourselves and the way we want to be seen.’

The purpose of the new campaign is to get Australians talking about our identity and asking, “Who do we want to be?” It’s about seeking to build a consensus about our identity that can include all Australians. A republic is for all of us. It’s about Australia, our identity and our place in the world.

The new campaign footing for the ARM started in early 2012, with the appointment of a new national director, David Morris. Morris grew up in Tasmania and worked for the late premier Jim Bacon. He resigned from his diplomat job to devote his energy towards an Australian republic. On his appointment, he stated:

“It’s a big ask and it’s time to start the conversation again … The first step is to find what we agree on as a nation rather than what divides us.”

David Morris has described Tasmania as “one of the staunchest republican states”. It was for this reason the Australian Republican Movement chose Tasmania as the place to revive Australia’s republic debate. 

In Tasmania, ARM national director David Morris (right) with comedian Julian Morrow and Senator Lisa Singh.

On 21 March 2012, eminent Australian historian Professor Henry Reynolds delivered a Public Lecture at University of Tasmania titled The Tasmanian Roots of the Republican Issue. In this lecture on the history of the republican issue in Tasmania, Henry Reynolds focussed on Australia’s pre-eminent republican, Andrew Inglis Clark.

Andrew Inglis Clark is still well-known in Tasmania. Andrew Inglis Clark was a passionate republican, an engineer, founder of the University of Tasmania, designer of Tasmania’s Hare-Clark voting system, editor of small, vibrant literary magazines and, above all, a believer in inalienable human rights. He had a lifelong fascination with the United States. He recounted how this began in his teenage years when the American Civil War broke out. His enthusiasm for the ideals of the American republic never died. Clark came to understand the principles of federalism from the captains of the Boston whaling fleet which fished the great southern oceans and regularly came to port at his home town, Hobart. As Alfred Deakin suggested, republicanism was a key feature of Inglis Clark’s intellectual character:

“Small, spare, nervous, active, jealous and suspicious in disposition, and somewhat awkward in manner and ungraceful in speech, he was nevertheless a sound lawyer, keen, logical and acute. A persevering student, his sympathies were republican, centring upon Algernon Sydney among Englishmen, upon Mazzini in Italy and especially upon the United States, a country to which in spirit he belonged, whose Constitution he reverenced and whose great me he idolized.”

Henry Reynolds stated that Inglis Clark was a member of the American Club in the 1870s with other “young, ardent republicans” and, at its annual dinner in 1876, he declared:

“We have met here tonight in the name of the principles which were proclaimed by the founders of the Anglo-American Republic … and we do so because we believe those principles to be permanently applicable to the politics of the world.”

As a result, Inglis Clark entered Tasmanian politics in 1878 under attack for his ultra-republican, if not communist, views by Hobart’s The Mercury.

Andrew Inglis Clark

Modern scholars agree that Andrew Inglis Clark wrote the first recognisable version of the Australian Constitution and it was through his draft that a strong republican element was introduced. Before the 1891 National Federal Convention commenced, work had already been undertaken to collect information to assist delegates in understanding the different ways of structuring a federation. Alfred Deakin had urged delegates at the 1890 Australasian Federation Conference to study James Bryce’s three-volume, The American Commonwealth (1888). In addition, the now Tasmanian Attorney-General, Andrew Inglis Clark had prepared a draft Constitution that was circulated to some of the delegates. It was written in the same form and language as an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and consisted of clauses extracted and adapted from the British North America Act, the United States Constitution, the Federal Council of Australasia Act 1885 and the Constitutions of the Australian colonies.

Andrew Inglis Clark’s draft Constitution contained the familiar structure of a House of Representatives directly elected by the people in electorates with approximately equal populations. A Senate constituted by an equal number of representatives of each State was already an accepted basis of Inglis Clark’s draft Constitution. The main differences with the final Constitution accepted at the end of the 1890s were that Inglis Clark’s Senate was to be elected by the State Parliaments rather than directly elected by the people, and there were no appeals to the Privy Council. Inglis Clark’s draft also provided for the election of State Governors by State Parliaments, and for amendment of the Constitution by federal legislation confirmed by two-thirds of the State Parliaments. Inglis Clark’s draft gave a form to the concept of federation and had a strong influence on the 1891 National Convention. He was later to state:

“…the authors of [the American Constitution were] … also the primary authors of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.”

Despite many subsequent changes and the work of others, especially Samuel Griffith and Charles Kingston, modern scholars agree that Andrew Inglis Clark wrote the first recognisable version of the Australian Constitution.

On 15 October 2012, Associate Professor James Curran also delivered an address on Australian republicanism at the Stanley Burbury Theatre in Hobart. In this lecture, Curran explored the history of Australia’s post-war ties to Britain and argued that the country’s shaky exit from the empire can help illuminate the path ahead for the Republican movement.  He also argued that one of the keys to Australia’s republican renewal is dispensing with tired metaphors and stale narratives about national ‘immaturity’ or cultural ‘dependence’ and instead focusing on the story of Australia’s remarkably rapid political, economic and social transformation since the 1970s.  Curran proposed a revitalised republican conversation that seeks to harness a shared sense of community and place along with a new and more inclusive narrative of the nation.

In Hobart on 20 October 2012, David Morris launched the republican campaign to start a month of activities throughout Tasmania in a trial run for a campaign in every state next year. The new republican campaign is about defining who we are, where we live, where we call home and who we want to be as a nation. This is an important conversation for all Australians, no matter where they live across all states and territories.

The ARM’s new national campaign is to be led from the bush and the regions, without pushing a preferred model. It is to avoid politicians and seek to re-engage ordinary citizens via a “conversation” about what it means to be Australian. Even so, the Tasmanian Premier, Lara Giddings threw her support behind the idea of Australia becoming a republic:

“I’m personally a strong supporter of an Australian republic. I hope that we will see a better way of having this debate and discussion with the Australian people so we can move towards a republic and become one.”

Other political class supporters include Andrew Wilkie (pictured above with David Morris) and Senator Lisa Singh. Mike Steketee wrote in The Age, 20 October 2012 how

'the republicans today move from a passive approach to a campaign footing. The focus will be on Australia’s identity and values, with a new website asking ”Who do we want to be?” It invites people to sign up and join the conversation about ”what are the values, identity and characteristics that make us unique?”

For the next four weeks, David Morris and the Tasmanian republicans travelled around Tasmania talking to everyday Australians at various shows and fairs culminating in a fundraiser dinner at Hobart’s spectacular Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) on 18 November 2012. During the Tasmanian republican campaign, the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, with his wife the Duchess of Cornwall, toured Australia as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations — then left.



During their visit, they attended the Melbourne Cup, where they spent their time in the Flemington’s committee room and presented trophies. Both these areas were closed to the public. The theme for the Royal visit was the lack of opportunity for everyday Australians to meet the Royal couple. For the people of Tasmania, the contact with the republicans was the complete opposite – open and engaged.

Back in Canberra, the republican historian and Manning Clark biographer Mark McKenna presented Starting all over again: Rethinking the republic of Australia for the 21st century as the 13^th Dymphna Clark Lecture on 14 November 2012 at the National Library of Australia. McKenna argued:

“…rather than waiting for the Queen to die, we need to start rethinking the case for a republic now. We need to rethink the arguments for a republic and make them relevant to Australia in the twenty-first century.”

This theme of rethinking the republic was continued on 24 November 2012, when the National Republican Lecture brought to a national close the republican campaigning for 2012. In James Curran’s Resetting the Republic lecture he presented his insights into the republican movement moving into the future. In essence, he claimed that the Australian Republican Movement “is being held captive by outdated nationalist rhetoric,” and identified anti-British sentiments as a key problem in modern republican argument. James Curran told his audience:

The republic can be part of that great story of Australian adaptability and change, but we cannot, and must not, lecture the people or treat the issue as some sort of pantomime about pathways to maturity. Australians, particularly the younger generation, simply don’t feel the nagging compulsion to trash a Brit.

Curran argued that the republican movement was “being held captive by out-dated nationalist rhetoric” and the debate suffers from ”rhetorical arthritis,” with leading Australian republican thinkers continuing to use ”hoary old platitudes” from the 1970’s.

It is time to avoid politicians and seek to re-engage ordinary citizens via a “conversation” about what it means to be Australian.

To participate in this conversation go to http://www.ouridentity.org.au

A Defining Moment

The 29 July 1981 is the anniversary of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral. Where were you back in 1981 when Prince Charles and Diana married? If you’re anywhere approaching 45 or over, you can probably recall exactly where you were and who you were with. For me it was the night of my Charters Towers State High School formal.

As we were such a small Year 12 group we customarily shared the event with the private schools. The main hall in the north Queensland country town was called the Horticultural Hall, which brings up all sorts of rural images. The other main dance hall in the town was where we learnt and practiced all our dance moves for the big night. The name of this hall reflected the interesting divisions in the old goldfield community. The Miners’ Union Hall was referred to by its abbreviation: MU Hall. But, in a collective loss of memory, townsfolk did not seem to remember how important and influential unionism had been on the goldfield in the nineteenth century and it was known to all and sundry as the ‘emu’ hall. However, for the Year 12 girls, the evening was to become a conflict of almost irreconcilable proportions — do I go to the Formal or watch the Royal Wedding on TV?

Charters Towers was a country town of conflicting and clashing ideas. There were townies and bushies; small businessmen and workers; rural conservatives and Labor supporters. A Marxist scholar could have had a field day defining class lines and divisions. For me though it was the egalitarianism of the goldfield that seemed to absorb me growing up in Charters Towers. Probably came from my family’s mining heritage. Whatever way, I always had the strong feeling that 'jack is as good as his master'.

In 1977 I remember seeing for the first time Star Wars. For me it was the Empire verse the Republic - with the rebels being the good guys fighting against the evil Empire. My first republican moment was played out within the confines of the aptly named Regent Theatre with a working-class community cheering on the successful overthrow of the Empire by the rebels within the grand flourish of a space opera.

Built during the gold-rush era of the late nineteenth century, the Regent Theatre stood firm on the periphery of the British Empire. But now it held a republican people cheering on the rebels struggles to overthrow rule by an evil Emperor. A few years later the Regent Theatre became a skating rink. Still the people attended although oblivious to the edifice of monarchy surrounding them. Years later it became a Crazy Clark’s emporium. How this must have embarrassed the old royal. Finally it became a storage building.

Leading up to our big event it was all about cakes and long trains and dresses. This was all the girls could talk about. For us boys, it didn’t seem to matter. For me though, the only princess that mattered was to be at the Horticultural Hall.

While all this was going on in Charters Towers, audiences worldwide paused as the fairy tale coach, replete with its Cinderella, rolled up to St Paul’s Cathedral steps and the ‘Queen of the People’s Hearts’ emerged in the crushed cream creation. Everyone gasped, and winced, and laughed when Diana repeated her bridegroom’s name incorrectly.

Our school formal didn’t quite match the 2,000,000 people lining the streets of Britain, but for us it was a defining moment. That night the girls declared for us. They came rather than watch the Royal wedding on TV.

Thirty years later we have had another generation of royal weddings. It feels like it’s time for Australians to ask themselves when are we going to stand up for ourselves and become an independent nation. Commit to all of us rather than a privileged few on the other side of the world. Just like the Year 12 girls did in 1981.

And as for my princess? Well, it may have taken her several more years to see me as her prince but all I can say is, “Three cheers for the republic”.

The Republic of Letters

THE National Republican Short Story Competition is open again. Now in its fourth year the National Republican Short Story Competition has helped to build the emerging Australian republican fiction genre. The theme this year is ‘defining Australian identity in a future Australian republic’. Short stories will speculate on Australian republican futures. They don’t have to be political thrillers or constitutional whodunits as long as they are an exploration of our future, our republican future.

(Image courtesy Alt-rock band of same name.)

The Republic of Letters emerged in France during the course of the 17^th and early 18^th centuries and was composed of French intellectuals from the Parisian salons who worked together to bring about concepts of philosophy, broadly conceived as the project of Enlightenment.The main way the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment’s Republic of Letters were transported throughout France and across the Atlantic was through polite conversation and letter writing. It was their imagining of possibilities that helped to bring about change. We can’t achieve anything unless we imagine it first. Before every great invention and before every great journey is the idea. Without ideas and imagination, we are all trapped in the past.

In 2009, the Australian Republican Movement used the example of the Republic of Letters to encourage political change in Australia through the establishment of the National Republican Short Story Competition. One way that change can begin is through speculative fiction writing.

Speculative fiction writers deal with possibilities.
They speculate.   

They make the future seem real.

The National Republican Short Story Competition began in 2009. This was a milestone, as it had been 10 years on 6 November 2009 since the republican referendum was lost. To commemorate this event and to remind Australians what they still didn’t have the Australian Republican Movement ran the First National Republican Short Story Competition as a challenge to Australia’s fiction writers to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic.

The winner of the 2009 First National Republican Short Story Competition was the Canberra-based writer, Kel Robertson. On learning of his win, he commented:

‘I am truly delighted to win this competition. I enjoyed myself immensely writing this story; the whole experience was entertaining. As a young man I was very much of my time and had great sympathy for the royal family whereas now find myself bemused by their activities. It was great fun being able to have some gentle pleasure at their expense.’

In Rook Feast, Robertson told the story of the final meeting between the King of England, who is under house arrest, and a minister of the British government. The minister (who is also a relative) has come to inform the last King of England “on a perfect English spring day” what is to be his fate. Set in the future, where a post-tourism-age appears to have killed the monarchy, Robertson’s story explored concepts of the hidden costs of monarchy through a ‘security expenditure issue’ and the theme of the inevitability of the popular will of the people. The plot was written around a discussion of what would be the individual future of the last King of England. There is a strong sense of pathos and resignation from the King:

“More than 1500 years of history all the way from bloody Edgar. Over. Ended.”

But for the last King there is no exile to

‘…California or New York, gracing the boards of big corporations, skiing Aspin in winter and sailing Rhode Island in summer.’

He is not welcome in the great democracy. Nor have the governments of Canada, Northern Ireland, New Zealand or countries in the Caribbean, and Africa accepted him. Instead, nearly 50 years after they removed their titular monarch, the government of Australia agrees he and his family can settle their as private citizens. In this Australian republican future the robust egalitarian society of the south remains strong with sufficient generosity of spirit to embrace the remnants of Northern Hemisphere royalty — the last King of England and the newest citizen of Australia.

In 2010, the theme for the Second National Republican Short Story Competition was ‘Life and Death in an Australian Republic’. Helen Bersten and Sean Oliver Ness were each awarded a ‘Highly Commended’ for their short stories Double Lives and Inauguration Day.

In Double Lives, Bersten tells dual stories: one set during a Presidential meet’n greet where his new team of advisers, Team PC (People’s Choice), are getting to know each other. At the same time, a fictional crime story is being told about the night the Dunbar sank at South Head in Sydney Harbour. Double Lives is both imaginative and innovative. The attempt at a dual narrative – one commenting on the other, the past intruding into the present – is ambitious and difficult. The complicated structure makes a genuinely ambitious and credible effort to produce a fiction. It is a story that has the required republican provenance but which tries to do other things and go to other places, both physically and psychologically.

In Inauguration Day, Ness tells the story of James Hapeta, an Australian Federal Police Lieutenant assigned to Presidential protection detail with the Inauguration Day Presidential parade. As the Presidential motorcade travels through the streets of Canberra, Hapeta and his security colleagues’ attention to security is at fever pitch due to a discovered credible threat. Ness’ sense of humour is evident in his reference to ‘Billies’. As the Presidential motorcade passes through Ainslie

‘…an elderly couple: grey hair, plain clothes, a stiffness that stood out from the happy families [are holding] a poster-size portrait of the Queen [and] a sign that said “THE SECOND RUM REBELLION IS HERE – GOD SAVE US ALL!’

Ness explains that in the early days, monarchists took the Rum Rebellion analogy and ran with it; in response, they were uniformly nicknamed Billy Blighs, or just Billies. Hapeta observes the scene around him:

‘The big houses faded as they turned a sharp corner onto Antill. On the left, they passed schools and public swimming pools and clusters of shops; on the right, rows of small homes and low-rise apartment blocks. State Policemen were on either side of the street, controlling the crowds. As the motorcade swept down the street, the low murmurs turned into a loud cheer that echoed off the apartment blocks. Streamers were tossed into the air, and confetti rained down like pink snowflakes.’

When Hapeta breaks protocol and leaves his post to assist a ‘Statie’, the theme of ‘Life and Death in the Australian Republic’ emerges. The final scene is captured by a bystander with the photo becoming the defining memory of the day.

In 2011 the theme for the Third National Republican Short Story Competition was ‘Citizen or Subject’. First prize was awarded to Valda Marshall for A Child of the Holocaust, second prize to Richard Johnson for The King and Mister Crow and third prize to Harold Mally for Royalty Reality.

Marshall’s winning story is a touching description of the raising of the first president by immigrant parents, whereas the second and third prizes have either Prince William or Prince Harry as a main character. Marshall is a former journalist and TV writer who has worked in Sydney, Toronto (Canada) and New York. Her television writing credits include Neighbours, and Sons and Daughters. While working with Neighbours, Valda co-authored two books based on the Ramsay Street families: The Ramsays: A Family Divided and The Robinsons: A Family in Crisis. She has been a staunch republican since the 1950s. “I am an absolutely passionate republican,” she has commented.

“At the movies in the 50s, when they played God Save the Queen before a screening, even then I thought, why are we doing this? Why do we have a head of state on the other side of the world?”

Her 2010 novel, The First President is a story of love and politics in which Australia becomes a republic in 2016. Valda was born in Adelaide and now lives in Sydney.

*****

It seems strange there is no tradition of republican speculative fiction in Australia. In colonial times there were republican poets such as Charles Harpur writing in the 1840s and 1850s, and republican writers such as John Dunmore Lang and Daniel Deniehy in the 1850s and William Lane, Henry Lawson and John Norton in the 1880s and 1890s. But where have been the republican stories for the past century? There have certainly been many republican writers during this time, but very few examples of where republican settings or arguments have been explored in Australian fiction. Republican arguments and explorations of the past and imaginations of the future have almost always been written within the framework of constitutional debates.

So, the Australian Republican Movement would like to point the way forward through Australian stories with a republican backdrop. They don’t have to be political thrillers or constitutional whodunits as long as they are an exploration of our future, our republican future.

Competition details

• First Prize: $500
• Second Prize: $60
• Third Prize: $40
• Length: 2,000 to 4,000 words
• Closing date: 6 November 2012
• Entry is open to all Australian residents

The Fourth National Republican Short Story Competition guidelines and entry form and list of judges are available at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com

To read more about the Australia’s emerging republican speculative fiction genre go to http://www.independentaustralia.net/2010/republic/speculating-on-a-republic

 

Previous National Republican Short Story winners are:

• 2011 First Prize – A Child of the Holocaust by Valda Marshall
• 2011 Second Prize – The King and Mister Crow by RPL Johnson
• 2011 Third Prize – Royalty Reality by Harold Mally
• 2010 ‘Highly Commended’ Prize – Double Lives by Helen Bersten
• 2010 ‘Highly Commended’ Prize – Inauguration Day by Sean Oliver Ness
• 2009 First Prize – Rook Feast by Kel Robertson