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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Current ARM National Chair Peter FitzSimons said

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no doubt that the game has changed.

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

“Well may we say God save the Queen”.

Time for Queen to hang up crown

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

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

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

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

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

National Wattle Day and the republic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now is a great time to be a republican

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

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

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

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

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

During his National Press Club speech, Peter FitzSimons stated

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

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

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

Now is a great time to be a republican.

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

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


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

 

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

Peter FitzSimons to spearhead renewed Republic push

Distinguished author, journalist and Australian rugby union international Peter FitzSimons has been appointed head of Australia's Republican Movement as it gears up for a high-profile campaign ahead of the next Federal election.

Peter FitzSimons has captured through his prolific pen some of the pivotal moments that have shaped our national identity. From now on he will be employing his considerable talents to making history as well as recording it by leading the Australian Republican Movement in its quest for an Australian head of state.

Author and journalist Peter FitzSimons AO has been appointed the new chair of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) as it overhauls its team and reboots plans for a high-profile campaign ahead of the next Federal election.

A passionate republican, FitzSimons is well-known through his regular Sydney Morning Herald column, as well as his many books. As one of our foremost writers of Australian history, FitzSimons has captured some of the pivotal moments that have shaped our national identity.
From his publisher, Random House:

'Peter is Australia's biggest-selling non-fiction author of the last ten years. Peter was named a Member of the Order of Australia for service to literature as a biographer, sports journalist and commentator, and to the community through contributions to conservation, disability care, social welfare and sporting organisations.'

He is also a regular TV commentator, a former Radio 2UE presenter and is also a former national representative rugby union player, playing seven test matches for the Wallabies.

Peter FitzSimons replaces former West Australian premier Professor Geoff Gallop as Chair of the Australian Republican Movement. FitzSimons said he will lead a renewed campaign for an Australian head of state. The ARM is calling for a non-binding vote – a plebiscite – by 2020 on the question of whether Australians want one of their own in the job.

Indeed, now is a great time to be a republican, said FitzSimons:

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

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

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

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

This announcement caps off an exciting couple of months for the Australian Republican Movement, which has also included the appointment of new national director Tim Mayfield.

Tim Mayfield wrote recently that the new national chair is hell bent on selling an Australian republic, saying:

'Australians need to move past the royal family "cult of the celebrity".'

But we’ll need all the help we can get. Not even a former Wallaby like Peter FitzSimons can get this one over the line on his own. Instead, winning an Australian republic will take this country’s best team effort yet.

There is a momentum happening around Australia. This is our great unfinished project and FitzSimons and Mayfield have the passion and wherewithal to bring it off.

Australian Republican Movement (Qld) 'Discussion Evening'

Thank you to those who braved the weather to attend our first "Members and Supporters Evening" for the year at the Pineapple Hotel, Kangaroo Point on Thursday, 30 April 2015. It was certainly a very wet and stormy night.

The evening was a great opportunity to hear from acting National Director Allison Henry on what is happening around Australia at a "big picture" level, as well as an opportunity for activists new and old to come together and commit to giving our cause an almighty shove in the right direction over the weeks and months ahead.

Right now, Australians are thinking and talking about our national leadership, and our national identity, in ways they haven't for a long time. This is an opportunity we must capitalise on as a Movement.

To that end, the Queensland ARM invites you to our first Discussion Evening for 2015.

ARM Queensland Members and Supporters Discussion Evening
Thursday 30 July 2015, from 6pm
Pineapple Hotel, Kangaroo Point
Free entry

For planning purposes, RSVPs appreciated by replying to qld@republic.org.au or at https://www.facebook.com/events/929855940409099/

PS - this is an event open to all Republicans, so please don't hesitate forwarding this invitation around widely.

Queensland's last Queen's birthday holiday

Queensland looks like becoming a little less Queensland with the proposed move of the Queen’s Birthday holiday next year and no ‘Sirs and Dames’ announced today in the honours list. Does this demonstrate the ebbing of monarchy in Australia? 

Today the Queen’s Birthday is being celebrated by a public holiday in all states and territories except WA, which celebrates it on 28 September. This will be the last year Queensland continues with this date.

After the election of the LNP Newman 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.

While the Queensland Government is responsible for setting the dates for all state-wide public holidays, there are only two – Labour Day and the Queen’s birthday – that have the potential to be changed. During 2011, there had been widespread consultation by the Bligh Labor Government on changing the public holiday system in Queensland and it was agreed that in 2012 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 Jubilee public holiday in June 2012. This would be the last June Queen’s Birthday long weekend.

At the time, Premier Anna Bligh said all public holidays marked significant dates and were punctuated with official ceremonies or significance, except for the Queen’s Birthday which, unlike other public holidays, is not celebrated on a date that is particularly meaningful. She was right. 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.

All this was thrown out the window in 2012 when legislation was passed through the Queensland Parliament by the 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.

Newman Government Attorney-General and ardent royalist Jarrod Bleijie did all he could to bring the monarchy back into the centre of Queensland public life. Thankfully, he is now sitting on the Opposition benches.

With the election of the Palaszczuk Labor Government in Queensland it appears the language of monarchy may be beginning to become less dominant. One of the first changes the new Queensland government implemented 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.

Labour Day has special significance for Queensland because of its links to events in the labour movement of the late nineteenth 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 recent Palaszczuk Government decision now events being planned for 2016 to mark the 125^th anniversary of the 1891 Shearer’s Strike and first Labour Day held in May in Queensland will be able to go ahead.

***

On 27 March 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott restored imperial honours for Australians. The re-establishment of the Imperial honours was done quickly and without consultation by Tony Abbott with his Federal front bench, let alone the first two recipients. At the time, the PM said he believed the awarding of ‘Sis and Dames’ was:

"... an important grace note in our national life."

For the first time since 1986, “pre-eminent” Australians were to be honoured as Knights and Dames in the Order of Australia. However, when Prime Minister Abbott named outgoing Governor-General Quentin Bryce a dame and her successor General Peter Cosgrove a knight the satirists had a field day.

Australian historian James Curran wrote in the Canberra Times, 31 March 2014 that

“In the symbolic landscape of Australian civic culture, Tony Abbott’s restoration last week of Australian knights and dames perhaps stands as one of the most pompous, pretentious, nostalgic and self-indulgent prime ministerial decisions in a generation.”

When Prime Minister Abbott introduced the archaic British aristocratic titles above the Australian national honours system, Australians flooded the Australian Republican Movement with such overwhelming numbers the Australian Republican Movement server was on the verge of crashing. David Morris, then National Director of the Australian Republican Movement, stated at the time:

"Since Mr Abbott’s announcement about 'knights and dames', our annualised membership growth rate has spiked to about 5000%. Many are re-joining, having previously been members. Many are people who say they voted for Mr Abbott’s Government but are dismayed by his personal decision, apparently made only in consultation with the Queen."

Imperial honours are divisive and are out of touch with modern, multicultural, egalitarian Australia. Perhaps another own goal by the Prime Minister may be good for the movement towards an Australian republic.

But just when you thought Prime Minister Tony Abbott's decision in 2014 to restore Imperial knights and dames couldn't become any more bizarre, he used the 2015 Australia Day's honour list to award a knighthood to the Queen’s consort, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (retd). One is currently the Chair of the Council for the Order of Australia, and the other … well, the husband of the monarch. As a palace spokeswoman said:

"Knights and dames in the Order of Australia are approved by the Queen on recommendation of the prime minister. We wouldn't comment further on the process."

Tony Abbott defended his selection of Prince Philip as a ‘Captain’s Pick’. Grandfather Royal, Prince Philip, apparently was ‘picked’ by Tony Abbott to be honoured by Australia with an AK for his contribution to Australia throughout the Queen's 62-year reign and his long life of service and dedication. Special mention was also made of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards in Australia, which he said had positively influenced the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Australians. The overwhelming chorus of outrage and stunned disbelief coming from throughout Australia not only had federal LNP politicians distancing themselves from Prime Minister Abbott at the speed of light but almost brought about his dismissal from office.

It was crystal clear that the message from the Australian people was if our identity today is Australian, then surely our national honours should be thoroughly Australian. It seems that even Tony Abbott heard this. Even dyed-in-the-wool monarchist, previous National Director for the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, perhaps even still British citizen, Tony Abbott received the message and skipped appointing any Knights or Dames in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Perhaps though this may have been because he was ‘pipped at the post’ in appointing his current favourite royal as a Knight, Prince Harry.

At the time I’d suggested that as one of the only two pre-1985 AK’s living was Prince Charles and, with the provision that a knight can be a non-citizen, that good money could be laid on Princes William or Harry receiving a knighthood in 2015 for having turned up in Australia a few times. It appears Prince Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Tony Abbott’s favourite spare-heir as a ‘Sir’ in a private ceremony. With the birth of Prince George, and now Princess Charlotte, Prince Harry moves from spare-heir to sir-plus.

Australia today is one of the world’s great nations, with a bright future that must be 100 per cent in the hands of the Australian people. We are ready to move on from our colonial past and become a fully independent nation with fully Australian national institutions, including our own Head of State. 

We have our own identity as Australians. The Royals represent Britain, but cannot represent us or unite us as Australians. Australians believe in freedom and equal opportunity, not that some are born to rule over others.

What has been confirmed with the non-appointment of any ‘Sirs and Dames’ is that Prime Minister Tony Abbott has clearly received the message there is no place in contemporary Australia for British aristocratic titles. To have done differently today may have resulted in the loss of his own position. This is a reflection of the strength of republican values in contemporary Australia.

It is time to set a new agenda for Australia focussed on everyday Australian families not royal families. There is an ideological war happening in Australia skirmishing around the place of families in our society. In Queensland the changes around the dates for Labour Day and the Queen’s Birthday public holidays is a visible manifestation of this war.