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Time to buy the expensive “Australian” monarchy a one-way ticket back to Britain, says senior correspondent Barry Everingham.
A few months ago the Daily Mail, one of London’s leading tabloids, ran a story penned by Nick Wood, one of the paper’s scribes, which can only be described as the beat up to end all beat-ups.
It contained a farrago of unsubstantiated costs for running the Elyse Palace in Paris, the home of elected French presidents — who are French people elected by the French people, unlike their English counterparts in Buckingham Palace, who are ethnic Germans who get there simply by accident of birth.
As a side bar, it is interesting to note the only monarch of Britain to have a non- German/Danish mother is the present Australian head of state — the ninth to hold the office and the only one ever to have bothered to visit this country. Even so, her record is something to behold; she’s been our head of state for sixty years and has been here just sixteen times — if she worked at Toyota she’d have been sacked this week with a job history like that!
I digress.
It seems the President runs up huge bills to keep the official residence going.
According to Nick Wood, there are 121 cars in the garage, the food bills run to ten thousand pounds a day (I’m sure that’s a lie); along with 200,000 quid annually on flowers; and other ridiculous amounts on planes, insurance, newspapers and fuel bills.
Now, what this has to do with Australia beats the hell out of me, but our old friend over at the headquarters of the blue rinse set and the flat earth society, Professor David Flint, has used Wood’s shaky research as the basis upon which to issue dire warnings about the cost of running an Australian republic when we become one.
In his frothing at the mouth, foot stamping and hissing, he doesn’t mention what it costs to run Buckingham Palace Windsor Castle, Balmoral, the Palace of Hollyrood House, Clarence House, Kensington Palace or any of the other royal boltholes dotted around the UK.
It has nothing to do with us anyway, but now Flint brings it up — what does it cost to run the palatial residences of the representatives of our foreign born non-elected invisible head of state?
Flint fails to ask what it will cost the Australian taxpayer to host the forthcoming visit of that pair of serial adulterers, Charles and Camilla, who will be out next king and queen when the current office-holder goes to God. The pension -aged couple will represent EIIR in this colony to mark her 60 years on the throne, and the gifts they “give” us as well as those we certainly give them will be paid by us.
But Flint isn’t stopping there; no, in a rambling (very poorly edited) diatribe, he hopped up on his horse once more to criticise Attorney-General Nicola Roxon for daring to mention the “R” word in public — even accusing her of having a “conflict of interest” in wanting a republic.
As I have asked again and again: where is this bloke coming from?
He further criticises Roxon for poo-pooing the notion of restoring the monarchies of Afghanistan and Iraq —total dictatorships, like the long gone “kingdoms” of Libya and Iraq and the despots currently running the Gulf States.
There is nothing wrong with our first Law Officer wanting this country to have its own head of state — and there is nothing wrong with changing the cringing un-Australian oath of allegiance to someone who hardly knows we exist and who wouldn’t know the difference between a Bondi bus and a Melbourne express.
It is gratifying to see the new ARM national director David Morris quoted in the press today saying Australia should be a republic by the 2016 Olympic Games.
It’s time to buy the “Australian” monarchy a one-way ticket home.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
6 Comments
So it’s cost, is it Barry? Or the Germanic bit? Or the adultery bit? Or the oath? Or what?
Propose an alternative so we can cost it, so we can examine it microscopically for Germanic/Danish taints, so we can inspect its bedrooms, so we can swear it is perfect.
Noooooo. Barry just boos.
While the basic points underlying Barry’s article are valid enough, the sneering sarcasm and hyperbole actually is most probably counter-productive.
The comment that the royals may be “ethnic Germans”, makes that sound derogatory and may well be offensive to Australians of German descent.
The essential point is that Australia is a proud independent and egalitarian country which deserves to have its own democratic Head of State. There is no need to be offensive about the royals or the Brits to make this fundamental point.
Australians would never ever accept a GG with such a high profile adulterous past, why should we be expected to accept Charles the cheat as our HoS and King.
I will ‘listen’ to your point of view Barry, when you lose the sneer and as another commentator mentioned, your Euro phobia. Let me remind you and bring it to the attention of other readers, the adulterers were found out by unsavoury, illeagal means. They were not the first nor will they be the last heads of state that went beyond the bounds of matrimony to get their kicks. It could be they even use other than the missionary position. I do believe a republic is inevitable, we can get there without animos.
Barry, it is not the Royal’s fault that they want to remain on top. They are onto a good thing and they are sticking to it. Blame us for keeping them. We are to blame for our own predicament. We had the means to become a Republic and we blew it. Don’t blame Flint and the Royals.
Colin – The cost of providing these mediocrities is an important issue, but just one of many. Absolutely pointless for anyone to come up with an alternative costing, when Australia ought to simply send this dreadful dynasty packing.Kilgore Shaft. The point is that these adulterers were guilty a of shocking ‘misdemeanour’,and that is putting it lightly, including the tampon business ugh!! Do not forget that the Queen halted a trial because revelations about one of her children would be damaging to the Monarchy also. So whoever it was who talked about the illegality of those who obtained the tampon and affair information, think again. I suggest you write to Elizabeth Battenberg, Care of Buck Palace, The Mall, London for an answer!! Moreover, Charles was allegedly having an affair before he married Camilla. Just go and look at his face on his wedding day with Diana and judge what a hypocrite he is.George 3018 – Because Australia failed to kick them out previously, is no reason not to try again.And I certainly do blame the royals. Any decent person would put the people first and not themselves. The self promoting anthem, the face on stamps and paper money, the oath of allegiance to an unelected HOS, AND her heirs and successors in perpetuity, Defender of the Faith and Commander in Chief of the military, are typical examples of a woman and dynasty that puts themselves before all else. Furthermore, none of them needed to accept the huge yearly (£millions) extra in State Benefits just ‘arranged’ with them, at one of the weekly governmental meetings??? at a time of severe austerity.Exclusion from the Freedom of Information Act, is also clearly self serving. As you may or may not know Wikileaks was responsible in releasing the appalling arrogance of Prince Andrew last year. But for his organisation that information would have been kept under wraps and not be released into the public domain. These appalling people forget, that it is the (at the moment) gullible and ill-informed British tax-payer who keeps them in luxury. Six hundred rooms for a single married couple?? Outrageous.