Not one to take on a learned Professor, let me start now, by beginning this post with a quote I read today:
The Australian Crown is important not so much for the power it wields, but the power it denies others. This is our crowned republic, one which ensures we have Australians as the constitutional head of state and constitutional heads of the Commonwealth, as the High Court has affirmed.
-Professor David Flint, national convenor of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/19/2368692.htm
Unfortunately Professor Flint is wrong in this instance, and let me tell you why. Having just returned from five years working overseas, predominantly with citizens of dear old England, I can assure you that they do not see our Head of State as an Australian. Professor Flint, of all people, should know that. Australia’s Head of State is a monarch of another country, and all she symbolises for us and for many other countries is colonisation. She symbolises the British Empire, an era that sends shudders through those same countries who saw their culture and way of life squashed by a superior group hellbent on subservience and domination. You may think I am sounding too dramatic here, but if we are to look at Australia’s status within the world, we are still seen by the English as a country that was once one large prison, and our race is descended from thieves and lowlifes. As one Englishman stated to me, “We sent our shit to your country.”
So, Professor, I find it incredible that you state that Australia’s present constitutional arrangement ‘…is important not so much for the power it wields, but the power it denies others.’ When my country was being ridiculed and laughed at because of our lack of independence, I didn’t feel I had the power. When my flag was laughed at by the English because it is dominated by the flag of the United Kingdom, I didn’t feel I had the power. And when I had to stand at the Australia Day Ball in Bangkok, Thailand in 2006 and raise my glass to ‘Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia’, I didn’t feel I had the power, especially with a dear English female friend of mine giggling quietly to herself at the sight of us forced to raise our glasses to an English monarch. So, Professor Flint, where, when and how is our current constitutional situation denying others power, especially the English?
With the election of Malcolm Turnbull as the leader of Australia’s opposition party this past week, we see the final stumbling block to Australia becoming a republic removed. Turnbull is a republican, as is Prime Minister Rudd. However, Turnbull is now stating that Australia will never be a republic during this Queen’s reign. This is an absurd statement to make, as the current monarch is 82, and her mother lived till she was 101! Can, and will Australia wait twenty years? Not a chance. With our two leading politicians being in favour of Australia becoming a republic, the agenda for it to happen will be brought forward.
A referendum on Australia becoming a republic was voted down in 1999, but only just. With a monarchist Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, it was never going to get enough traction to be a free and fair fight. Howard called a ‘Constitutional Convention’, which was the predecessor to Rudd’s 2020 Summit held earlier this year. It was a talkfest, which achieved little. All the debate did was confuse people even more and cause a split vote on the day of the referendum. There was even the ridiculous situation of republicans voting no for a republic, because of the model that was put forward. John Howard, as a monarchist, was generally seen as someone contributing heavily to the defeat of the referendum. At the time, Malcolm Turnbull was head of the Australian Republican Movement, and said:
“Whatever else he [Prime Minister Howard] achieves, history will remember him for one thing. He was the prime minister who broke this nation’s heart.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_republic_referendum,_1999#Analysis_of_results
It’s time now for Malcolm Turnbull to mend that broken heart and work with Kevin Rudd to make sure the David Flints of this world stop sabotaging this debate. The next attempt at a Republic should simply be a single question on a ballot accompanying the next General Election ballot in 2010/11. It should simply be, ‘ Should Australia become a Republic?’ If that is defeated, then the issue should be dropped indefinitely.
What I cannot understand is why Professor Flint needs to justify a constitutional system and flag which celebrates a bygone era. India has been independent for decades, as have many other countries that were colonised by the British. We celebrate when our children leave home and go it on their own. We are scared for them, sure, but we hope that we have taught them enough that they will be fine on their own. The same too with Australia. ‘Mother’ England wants to let us go. I am sure the Queen herself is wondering why the hell we’re taking so long. We have no legal or judicial links to Britain, and we stand proudly in our own right in many circles, ranging from the arts, to sport, literature, science and medicine. Why, then, must Professor Flint, and people of his ilk, feel the urge to cling ever so tightly onto the coat tails of ‘mummy?’ What are they afraid of? The romaticisation of retaining the monarchy reminds me of former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, referring to a young Queen Elizabeth II, when she visted Australia back in the late 50’s/early 60’s:
“I did but see her passing by and yet I love her ’til I die”
The quote sounds pathetic now, but so does Professor Flint.
Enjoy your day.
