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The essential reasons for an Australian Republic are obvious and important, writes managing editor David Donovan.
There are many good reasons why Australia should become a republic, but the core ones are obvious and important.
Firstly, an Australian Republic is about having an Australian head of state. Whilst it is true that Australia is a functionally independent nation, and the Governor General acts as a de facto head of state, under our Constitution the British monarch is the font of all legal power in Australia and our formal head of state. Until we break our last Constitutional links to the mother country, our nationhood is incomplete. Now, after 110 years of Federation, Australia must finally join the world of nations as a full equal, unshackled to any other nation.
Perhaps even more importantly, the British monarchy is inequitable and undemocratic. It goes against commonly accepted Australian values about which we are justifiably proud – such as fairness, equality and egalitarianism – for Australian citizens to be the subjects of a foreign unelected figurehead monarch. Much more so when we consider that this head of state is selected not through merit, but through the principles of hereditary male primogeniture, and with Catholics being specifically ineligible. This is discriminatory and unfair, and wouldn’t be allowed under the anti-discrimination provisions of Australian law, yet is still the method of selection for the Australian head of state.
What sort of example are we setting for our children when we say that our society is set up to reward hard work and talent, and with diligence and tenacity you can get anywhere in life—anywhere, that is, except for the very top job, which is reserved for the first born male – or, if no males are available, female – non-Catholic individual born into a particular highly privileged English family.
That we still maintain links to this inequitable and unfair system – and have not asserted our full independence – is an affront to our national dignity. It is something that, irrespective of any fondness we may feel for a particular monarch, we should resolve to correct at the earliest possible time. The current system does not complement a free and fair Australia.
Let’s have a plebiscite on the question Australians have the knowledge now to answer with confidence: “do you want an Australian Republic with an Australian head of state”. If this is resolved in the affirmative, let’s work to create the best republican Constitution in the world and put it to a referendum against the current system. If successful, we will then be able to move forward into the new millennium as a fully free, united and confident nation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
17 Comments
The events in Tunisia and Egypt highlight the significance of the role of Head of State for a nation. While both of these dictators resided locally in their respective countries yet to a real extent they were as remote from the people they represented as is the British monarch to her loyal Australian subjects. In times of crisis, one comes to realize the importance of a Head of State who is one with the people and who shares their aspirations, values, vision and life. While a sense of complacency suggests that no such crisis is imminent in Australia and hence there is no need to review the question of the Head of State, yet the tenuous state of both Houses of Parliament suggests otherwise and that a parliamentary crisis is a very real possibility in the not too distant future. At such a time would we really be totally indifferent as to whether the final decision on how such a crisis should be resolved should be sheeted abroad to the UK for a foreign monarch to decide or would we rather want an Australian Head of State to have the final say???
brilliant!
That’s right. Do we really want to be constitutionally linked to a country founded in 1066 by the French and ruled currently by the Saxe-Coburg Gotha’s??
One other point worth mentioning in terms of democratic rule, which seems to get no mention at all, is that the UK is still essentially ruled by a privy council who get up to all sorts of shennanigans when they think nobody is looking.. That alone should be enough for us to part ways in disgust.
The UK was not founded by the French in 1066. The nations of Wales, England and Scotland were well developed by this time – the Normans spoke French but were of a separate state formed of Viking origin.
Nonetheless the Normans did become the elite of the UK, and have ruled over the people of Britain and later Empire/Commonwealth, owning most of the land.
I agree Australia could become independent, but until a realistic and popular alternative emerges the status quo is just an easier option. This has been the situation for the people of Britain for the last 1000 years, as it still is, and is for Australia today. Unfortunately.
Australia already is functionally independent, it just needs to formalise the situation.
I find it offensive that the Military Oath that our Defence Force Personnel swear, is sworn to Her Majesty and her Heirs and doesn’t even mention Australia at all.
Pathetic.
Accordingly, perhaps our Veterans should write to the Queen and ask
her to increase their meagre pensions, given that successive Australian Governments couldn’t care less about our Diggers.
Dear Tess,
Interesting point about the Military Oath.
Let’s get “HYPOTHETICAL” for a moment:
Just suppose somebody (we’ll call him Fred), in the Aust defence forces, gets an order from one of HM’s senior officers (in a faraway little island) to do something, let’s say, that looks “treasonous” from an Australian perspective.
So what does Fred do? — many years ago, a much younger Fred swore an oath to the Queen. Theoretically, Fred has to think that the senior British officer ordering him to do something treasonous is working for the Queen, so Fred should do what his guiding light in a British uniform directs.
So, “THEORETICALLY”, Fred could find himself doing something treasonous, that might involve, ooh, let’s think of something like . . . .
Yeah, just one of those theoretical situations that could never happen if a nation on the other side of the world might decide that some of OUR people are worth sacrificing for “the greater whatever of THEIR ruling class, or banksters or “. . . .
Dear TERRA AUSTRALIS, maybe Fred could apply this logic to get his Australian Passport reinstated.
Yes, I think the Fred who has been without his passport for so long will get it back very soon, which will be very nice (at last!).
And the Fred from Defence might have, as ordered, trotted off to a city in the western half of the country to find a foreigner living there – who had experience in choreographing the sort of theoretical events that we think couldn’t happen except in nightmares and horror stories scripted by evil men . . . .
In a city whose name begins with a P, there is a joke which goes like this:
Q: “Why wasn’t Jesus born in P—-?”
A: “Because God couldn’t find three wise men from the East!”
The joke bespeaks a certain prejudice – so back when beer barons were winning yacht races, when young “passport Fred” decided to “go west young man!”, he encountered such prejudice, and took a while to find a regular job in his new city. In the interim, he found himself working with some (foreign) people with rather interesting connections and skills, connections that reached as far as a future PM of his oil rich country who had interrupted his career to help make a bunch of American visitors to his country spend an extended sojourn in their embassy.
Many years later, “Defence Fred” would come, on his special assignment, seeking special expertise from among some of “passport Fred’s” former workmates.
Defence Fred and his bosses would eventually decide that Passport Fred knew too much, and would be more conveniently located elsewhere, without of course, an Aust passport lest he return, with some more dots joined.
Australian Defence Force Personal have an option of an oath to the British Monarchy or the Australian Parliament and its People.
When WW1 erupted Australians were placed under the control of the British military and British Parliament for a war between European monarchies headed by family members resulting in 60,000 Australian casualties from a population of 4.5 million.
The disastrous deployment of Australians in Greece during WW2 showed we did not learn the lesson. Today it would be preposterous to suggest that the Australian Parliament should not retain ultimate control of our military, yet today, swearing allegiance to a foreign head of state remains an option.
Should read “Personnel”.
“born into a particular highly privileged English family.” Actually, it’s a German family which underwent a name change to Windsor at the outbreak of WW1 to counteract negative feelings or animosity by the public toward them. funny how the Germans and Russians dont have them anymore but we are still stuck with them.
“I find it offensive that the Military Oath that our Defence Force Personnel swear, is sworn to Her Majesty and her Heirs and doesn’t even mention Australia at all.”
When I was in the Army we were told the oath to the Queen was so that we could not hold a coup against the government of the day. As HM would tell us to stop and desist. Great in theory but it didnt work in Fiji
I was a lecturer in a range of computer courses (university and TAFE) for several years. Because so many people want skills or qualifications related to computers, I had a huge cross-section of people through my classes, including ex participants from the conflict in Northern Ireland.
EX British Army, ex police, ex bomb squad, ex police intelligence, and ex IRA, I got to talk to all of them, including people close to those who killed Lord Mountbatten.
Remarkably, they ALL told me the same thing — that Ireland and control of it, didn’t matter very much to the power wielders in London. I was surprised, and asked, well why the conflict??
The reply was always the same — “because Northern Ireland was a training exercise and a demonstration – to those in Britain – that their army was trained, ready and willing, to shoot people with blue eyes and British facial features”.
In other words, the agenda was terror and intimidation of the population back home (ie in Britain).
It was an enlightening (very) observation!
Marc of Tuggeranong @ 2:41 says
“Australian Defence Force Personal have an option of an oath to the British Monarchy or the Australian Parliament and its People”.
There is no such option to my knowledge Marc. Tess has it right. Personnel enlisting in the ADF have the option of an oath or affirmation. The form of affirmation is
“I, (insert full name of person) promise that I will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, as a member of the
(insert Australian Navy , Australian Army , or Australian Air Force )
(insert for the period of (number of years) , and any extensions of that period, or until retiring age, )
and that I will resist Her enemies and faithfully discharge my duty according to law.”
(The Oath is essentially the same but somewhat more lurid with swearing and appeals to God).
The latest ADF Regulations which specify both the oath and the affirmation above came out in 2002, according to internet resources. If you know of more recent changes, please let us know Marc.
I find it extremely sad that the first duty of people charged with the Australia’s defense is to protect a distant Monarch from her enemies, rather than the nation’s.
Quoting from Jeffrey’s post above re the sworn loyalties of our military, to the effect that Tess has it right:
” . . .that the first duty of people charged with the Australia’s defense is to protect a distant Monarch from her enemies, rather than the nation’s.”
Now add in today’s news that our military has been heavily penetrated by an assortment of psychos, bullies, paedophiles and perverts, FOR 60 YEARS:
“. . .The summary says previous report findings and Defence files show very little evidence perpetrators had been called to account.
“(And) there is a risk that those perpetrators now hold middle and senior management position within the ADF”.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/national/minister-denies-cover-up-of-defence-abuse/story-e6frfkvr-1226396028712#ixzz1xoZvmddr
So we have our military, whose first sworn loyalty is NOT TO AUSTRALIA, populated by several people in middle and senior management who can BE EASILY COMPROMISED OR BLACKMAILED because of their perversions.
Er, that does not seem a good look or smart.
If someone worked for Google, but had a sworn first loyalty to Microsoft, and was a paedophile who could be easily blackmailed, how long do you think Google would keep him or her on the payroll, and trust him or her with Google’s product secrets??
Google’s shareholders would not stand for that for FIVE MINUTES!! But the Australian voters have put up with it for, oh, let’s say ABOUT 112 YEARS!!
AMAZING, ISN’T IT?!!