Stories of the Australian Republic

Third National Republican Short Story Competition Winners Announced – 26 January 2012

2012-01-26T19:08:00.012+10:00

In 2011 Australia’s speculative fiction writers were challenged to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic using the theme ‘Citizen or Subject’. The 2011 Judging Panel comprised Tom Keneally, Professor John Warhurst and Professor George Williams.

Valda Marshall has been awarded ‘First Prize’ in the Third National Republican Short Story Competition for ‘A Child of the Holocaust’. She 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 said. “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.

Richard Johnson has been awarded ‘Second Prize’ in the Third National Republican Short Story Competition for ‘The King and Mister Crow’. He is an ex-Pommie who migrated from the UK in 2001. He works as a structural engineer and has been privileged to work on several iconic building such as Flinders Street Station and the renovation of the GPO. He had had a couple of prior publishing credits, most notable of which is the Gold Award at the Writers of the Future Competition in Hollywood last year, the world’s longest-running and most prestigious competition for amateur writers of science fiction. Richard lives in Melbourne with his wife and four year old son.

Harold Mally has been awarded ‘Third Prize’ in the Third National Republican Short Story Competition for ‘Royalty Reality’. He lives in Sydney and writes short fiction. A number of his stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Blue Crow, Eclecticism, Page Seventeen, Scribe, Narrator, Splatter, 21D, [untitled], The Bridge and The Lightship Anthology. A few have won awards. Many have done nothing at all.

The Third 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 ‘A Child of the Holocaust’, ‘The King and Mister Crow’, and ‘Royalty Reality’ 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 2012.

The winning short stories entries were published on the Australian Republican Movement website on 26 January 2012.

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

Be a Citizen. Not a Subject'

2011-11-06T09:32:00.004+10:00

The Third National Republican Short Story Competition closed today and the winners will be announced on 26 January 2012. The theme this year was ‘Citizen or Subject’. The difference between citizen and subject has often been glibly said to be that a citizen has rights whereas a subject has privileges. A subject owes their allegiance to a sovereign and is governed by that sovereign’s laws whereas a citizen owes allegiance to the community and is entitled to enjoy all its civil rights and protections. The difference between citizen and subject lies in where an individual places their allegiance: subjects (to a sovereign) and citizens (to a state; to a republic).

Until 1 January 1949, when the British Nationality Act 1948 came into force, at common law, to be a British subject, one simply had to be born in any territory under the sovereignty of the British Crown. From 1949 onwards every person who was a British subject by virtue of a connection with the United Kingdom or one of her Crown colonies became a British citizen. However citizens of other Commonwealth countries retained the status of British subject and were known by the term Commonwealth citizen. From 1949 to 1982, a person born in England would have been a British subject and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, while someone born in Australia, would have been a British subject and a citizen of Australia. During this time Australian passports had on the front ‘BRITISH SUBJECT Australian Citizen’.

The status of British subject was retained in Australian law until Part II of the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 was removed by the Australian Citizenship Amendment Act 1984 which came into force on 1 May 1987. Australia severed its final legal ties to Britain by enacting the Australia Acts of 1986. However it must be said we have yet to sever our final symbolic ties to Britain as represented by our head of state being the British monarch. In 1999 the High Court found British citizens to be ineligible to stand for election to our Federal Parliament because they owe allegiance to a ‘foreign power’.

Most Australians like a bit of humour and larrikinism in their politics. ‘Be a Citizen. Not a Subject’. Thankfully we can finally do this in law. As Australians our allegiance is to us, the people of Australia.

2011-07-01T09:50:00.011+10:00

Republican challenge to Australian writers

Entry to the Third National Republican Short Story Competition is now open. The theme for the Third National Republican Short Story Competition is 'Citizen or Subject'. Short stories will use the theme to speculate on Australian republican futures.

First Prize: $500
Highly Commended: $50
Length: 2000 to 4000 words
Entry is open to all Australian residents

The Third National Republican Short Story Competition challenges Australia’s fiction writers to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic.

Speculative fiction writers deal with possibilities.
They speculate.
They make the future seem real.

However, 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.

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 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.

Where do the people of Australia fit into this? Where are their myths and stories to tell and retell and remember about Australia’s emerging republican identity?

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.

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:

Helen Bersten, Double Lives, 2010 Highly Commended
Sean Oliver Ness, Inauguration Day, 2010 Highly Commended
Kel Robertson, Rook Feast, 2009 First Prize

The competition guidelines and entry form and list of judges are available at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com

For more information contact fiction@republic.org.au

2011-07-01T09:49:00.014+10:00

2011 Judging Panel announced

The Judging Panel was announced today for the Third National Republican Short Story Competition.

Thomas Keneally was born in 1935 and his first novel was published in 1964. Since then he has written a considerable number of novels and non-fiction works. His novels include The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Schindler's List, and The People's Train. His latest non-fiction book was The Australains: Origins to Eureka. He has won the Miles Franklin Award, the Booker Prize, the Los Angeles Times Prize, the Mondello International Prize and has been made a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library, a Fellow of the American Academy, recipient of the University of California gold medal, and is now a 55 cent Australian stamp. He is also widely known as the founding chairman of the Australian Republican Movement.

Professor John Warhurst recently concluded fifteen years as Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. He is Adjunct Professor at both Australian National University and Flinders University, Senior Deputy National Chair, Australian Republican Movement and was Australian Republican Movement National Chair from 2002 to 2005. He also writes a weekly column for the Canberra Times.

Professor George Williams is Anthony Mason Professor of Law and Foundation Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at University of New South Wales. He was previously a National Committee member, Australian Republican Movement and regular reviews science fiction and fantasy books for The Book Show on ABC Radio National and for The Weekend Australian.

Dr Glenn Davies is Queensland State Convener, Australian Republican Movement, a republican historian and author, and a 2008 and 2009 Aurealis Awards Science Fiction Short Story judge. He reads slush pile for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

2011-07-01T09:48:00.005+10:00

2011 Competition Terms and Conditions

1. Entry is open to all Australian residents. Entry forms can be downloaded from http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

2. The purpose of the short story competition is to promote non-constitutional change towards an Australian republic and to remind Australians what they still do not have.

3. The theme for the speculative fiction competition is 'Citizen or Subject'. Short stories will be required to use this theme to portray an Australian republican future.

4. First prize is $500. Highly Commended prize is $50. The First Prize and Highly Commended short stories are eligible for publication in Republican Roundup and on the ARM website. Copyright of each short story will remain with the author.

5. Entry fee is $11.99 (incl GST). Each additional submission fee is $6.11 (incl GST) Entry fees are to be paid by money order or cheque to Australian Republican Movement. Please do not send cash.

6. Entries must be unpublished and not have won any other awards. Each manuscript entered must meet all of the following requirements:
* Length -- 2000 to 4000 words
* Typed -- double spaced on one side of the paper
* Title Page -- must include your name, address, phone number, story title, length, and email
* Do not submit originals. Manuscripts will not be returned.
* While appropriate colourful language might be accepted (within moderation), entries must not contain extreme foul language, racial or sexually explicit content that would render the entry unsuitable for publication.
* Electronic copies will be accepted at fiction@republic.org.au
* Deadline -- postmarked on or before 6 November 2011 (Advice: enter early -- avoid deadline crush)

7. The competition will be judged by Professor John Warhurst, Professor George Williams and Dr Glenn Davies. The judging committee will select the best short stories from the qualified entries and determine the winners. The judges reserve the right not to award prizes if in their judgement there are no short stories entered of sufficient standard. The decision of the judging committee is final.

8. The prize money will be awarded by Australian Republican Movement in accordance with the decision of the judging committee. First Prize and Highly Commended winners will be publicised on 26 January 2011. Each contestant after 26 January 2011 will receive the following information: Name of the competition winner / Name and background of the judges / The 2010 competition statistics

9. Mail signed official entry form and your manuscript (s) on or before 6 November 2011 to: Australian Republican Movement (Qld), PO Box 87, Geebung Q 4034

10. If you have any questions, please feel free to email fiction@republic.org.au or post a blog query at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

Best of luck!

2011-07-01T09:47:00.008+10:00

2011 Entry Form

The Australian Republican Movement invites submissions of original short stories to be considered for the Third National Republican Short Story Competition.

How to enter
Simply fill in the entry form and send together with a cheque for $11.99 and your republican speculative fiction short story to:

Australian Republican Movement
PO Box 87
Geebung QLD 4034

Entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not have won another competition.

First prize is $500

Highly Commended prize is $50

Personal Details

Given Name(s) / Surname

_________________________________________________________

Postal address

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

Email address

_________________________________________________________

Story title

_________________________________________________________

Please write the title of your story on each page of your submission

By submitting my entry into the competition I agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the competition. (posted at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/ )

Signature _______________________ Date _________

Entries will be accepted until close of business on 6 November 2011.

Further information contact fiction@republic.org.au or go to http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

2010-11-06T14:40:00.014+10:00

2010 Second National Republican Short Story Competition Winner Announced

Helen Bersten and Sean Oliver Ness were each awarded today a ‘Highly Commended’ in the Second National Republican Short Story Competition for their short stories Double Lives and Inauguration Day.

The 2010 theme was ‘Life and Death in an Australian Republic’. Australia’s speculative fiction writers were challenged to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic.

The Judging Panel comprising Professor Brian Matthews, Professor John Warhurst and Professor George Williams decided not to award a 2010 First Prize. Instead they have awarded two ‘Highly Commended’ prizes and recommended the prize be jackpotted for 2011. This is not an unusual outcome for literary competitions. Winners will receive $50 each.

Winner of a ‘Highly Commended’ in the Second National Republican Short Story Competition is Helen Bersten. Mrs Bersten is a librarian, who has been working for the last 32 years as Honorary Archivist for the Australian Jewish Historical Society in Sydney. In 2005 she received an OAM for her voluntary service to the historical society. She has also been a voluntary reader on Radio 2RPH (Radio for the Print Handicapped) for the last 6 and a half years. She is an avid writer of letters to newspapers and an amateur poet, who proof-reads others' works and dreams of writing her own magnum opus. She is a wife, mother of 3 and grandmother of 5.

In Double Lives, Mrs 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.

The Judges commented that 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. They felt the complicated structure, though at times flawed, 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.

Winner of a ‘Highly Commended’ in the Second National Republican Short Story Competition is Sean Oliver Ness. Mr Ness was born in North Queensland but his family moved to Hong Kong when he was young. He lived there until he was 12 returning to Brisbane and later study in Psychology and Information Technology at university. He works in the public service in Canberra. His interests include travelling, participating in Volunteer Emergency Services, following politics and, of course, reading and writing a lot.

In Inauguration Day, Mr 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.

The Judges noted as nicely managed the following paragraph in Inauguration Day where 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.

The two ‘Highly Commended’ entries were published on the Australian Republican Movement website on 6 November 2010.

2010-09-01T22:57:00.008+10:00

Republican challenge to Australian speculative fiction writers

The 2010 Second National Republican Short Story Competition opened on 1 May 2010 and closed on 31 August 2010. The winner will be announced on 6 November 2010.

The theme for the Second National Republican Short Story Competition is 'Life and Death in an Australian Republic'. Short stories will speculate on Australian republican futures.

The Second National Republican Short Story Competition continues the momentum built from the successful 2009 First National Republican Short Story Competition. 2009 was a milestone as it was 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.

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 almost no examples where republican settings or arguments have been explored in Australian fiction. Republican arguments and explorations of the past and imaginations of the future are always written within the framework of constitutional debates.

Where do the people of Australia fit into this? Where are their myths and stories to tell and retell and remember about Australia’s emerging republican identity?

This Second National Republican Short Story Competition challenges Australia’s fiction writers to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic.

Speculative fiction writers deal with possibilities.

They speculate.

They make the future seem real.

However, 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.

So, the ARM (Q) 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.

2010-08-22T14:44:00.007+10:00

Tomorrow when the republic comes

M. Barnard Eldershaw was the pseudonym used by the twentieth century Australian literary collaborators Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw

Their final collaborative novel, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, published in 1947 as Tomorrow and Tomorrow, is considered to be one of Australia's major early science fiction novels and was highly regarded by Australia's only Nobel Prize winner for literature, Patrick White. It is set in the 24th century and features Knarf (a novelist and historian whose name is an inversion of Frank Dalby Davison's first name).

The book is essentially a story-within-a-story, with much of it comprising an historical novel, written by the character Knarf, about "old" Australia from 1924-1946. This story is basically an alternative history of an Australian socialist republic from the 1920s on flowing from a revolution during the First World War. It was, however, censored for political reasons at the time: the censors demanded that 400 lines be cut, including references to National Security regulations and how they contradicted the democratic principles for which the war was supposedly being fought.

2010-08-07T20:30:00.007+10:00

Speculating on the Republic

On 3 August 2010 Independent Australia published the the first review ever undertaken on the republican speculative fiction genre in Australia.

It seems strange there is no tradition of republican speculative fiction in Australia. It is through speculative fiction that change can begin. 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.

2010-08-02T20:45:00.004+10:00

Republic - 'The Land Itself '

In 2000, the Australian speculative fiction writer Sean Williams published in Eidolon. The Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol.7, No.2 (No.29/30) the story he had written too late for the 1998 Aurealis Republic issue.

Williams’ decribes ‘The Land Itself’ as “not just a post-human take on the whole Republic issue, but as post-Australia (if that’s a thing).”

One of the Australian colonies wants to secede from the motherland and its envoy has to jump through several increasingly strange hoops to do it. He follows this up in 2005 with his second novel, The Resurrected Man which is set in a future Australia (2069) that was part of the United Republics of Australia in which ‘Old Stott-Despoja’ had just been voted in for another term.

2010-07-28T21:12:00.004+10:00

Australian identity, Australian literature and an Australian republic

On 7 July 2010, David Donovan wrote in Online Opinion that a major reason for an Australian republic is to aid the further development of a distinct and unique Australian identity. This identity comes through the way we think about ourselves and our nation: the stories we tell, the songs we sing, our legends and our myths. From our literature and popular fiction, we can see that Australia has built a narrative about who we are as a nation, and new chapters are being added all the time as the national identity is updated with each new era.

As part of this process, the Australian Republican Movement runs an annual speculative fiction short story competition. Entries close in August for the current installment of this competition. This year, writers are asked to present stories about Australia’s republican future, under the theme “Life and Death in the Australian Republic”.

There is no real tradition of speculative republican fiction in Australia. A great many of Australia’s most important works of fiction look towards our past rather than ahead. Moreover, with some exceptions rather than preferring bright and optimistic tales, the stories with which we seem to most identify have a strong sense of adversity, injustice and persecution at their core.

2010-06-07T20:49:00.005+10:00

2010-06-03T09:52:00.017+10:00

Crown's don't sit well

In Tohby Riddle's, The Royal Guest, (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993; Puffin 2008) the Queen is planning a trip to Australia, but there is talk about the cost. Luckily, a Mrs Jones from Padstow offers to put her up. She has plenty of room, not to mention a very comfortable inflatable mattress. All the Queen needs to bring is a her own sleeping bag.

Over the next few days, the Queen experiences everyday suburban life, playing cards with Mrs Jones and her friends and helping Mrs Jones take her cat to the vet on her way to a meeting with the Prime Minister.

After a hectic round of royal engagement, the Queen returns to spend her last night at Padstow. Before she leaves the next moring, she hands Mrs Jones a thankyou gift. It is the most delicately, crafted jewelled crown, one of the Queen's old favourites. Mrs Jones, who is busy packing the Queen's lunch, accepts the crown, joking that this must make her 'the Queen of Padstow'.

Although this is where the story ends, republican historian Mark McKenna has reflected on the crowning of Mrs Jones. In Symbols of Australia (2010), p.33 he wrote:

I've often imagined Mrs Jones sitting at her kitchen table, carefully placing the crown on her head. How strange it must have felt, this crown that jarred with her clothes and refused to sit straight on her hair. If the neighbours caught sight of her, they'd probably have thought she'd gone mad. After all, what good is a crown in Padstow? We know nothing of how long Mrs Jones reigned in her realm of Padstow, or whether she managed to find any loyal subjects, although given the wry delivery of her final line it would seem unlikely she persisted with the fantasy of being the Queen of Padstow.

The sight of any Australian wearing the crown of royalty - like the sight of the crowned Mrs Jones in Padstow - seems frankly absurd. Crowns do not sit well on Australian heads.

2010-05-25T22:12:00.006+10:00

Republic Upstairs with Nick Earls

The Republic Upstairs welcomes as its next guest speaker, Nick Earls.

The Republic Upstairs has a proud history and over the past decade has hosted some of the leading figures in sports, finance, journalism, the arts and politics.

This tradition continues with Nick Earls, speaking at the 12 Lounge at the Melbourne Hotel in West End next month.

Date: Sunday 20th June 2010
Time: 2:00pmLocation: 12 Lounge, The Melbourne Hotel
Address: 10 Browning Street, West End, 4101
Admisson Charges: $30RSVP: by 15th June email qld@republic.org.au

Nick Earls is an award winning and highly successful Queensland writer, as well as a long-standing member of the Queensland branch of the Australian Republican movement. Nick was born in Northern Ireland and emigrated to Australia when he was eight. His family settled in Brisbane and he went to school at ‘Churchie’ before completing a medical degree at the University of Queensland. Nick’s father was a GP and he worked for a time in the same profession before turning to writing full-time in his mid-20s. This decision proved to be an almost immediate success when his first adult novel, Zigzag Street, won the Betty Trask award in 1998. Then in 2000, his young-adult novel 48 Shades of Brown won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for older readers.

Most of Nick’s writing is humorous and fun and almost all of it is set in Brisbane. Many of his novels have been adapted for stage, film and television. His first work written specifically for the stage, The True Story of Butterfish, was shown at the Brisbane Powerhouse as part of the Brisbane Festival in October 2009.

The admission charges will cover a modest bar tab as well as a selection of finger food. The Melbourne hotel offers $5 parking and is close to many public transport options.

2010-05-01T14:37:00.004+10:00

Second National Republican Short Story Competition opens

The 2010 Second National Republican Short Story Competition opened today, 1 May 2010 and will close on 31 August 2010. The winner will be announced on 6 November 2010.

The Second National Republican Short Story Competition continues the momentum built from the successful 2009 First National Republican Short Story Competition. 2009 was a milestone as it was 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.

The theme for the Second National Republican Short Story Competition is 'Life and Death in an Australian Republic'. Short stories will speculate on Australian republican futures.

2010-05-01T14:30:00.003+10:00

2010 Entry Form.

The Australian Republican Movement invites submissions of original short stories to be considered for the Second National Republican Short Story Competition.

How to enter
Simply fill in the entry form and send together with a cheque for $11.99 and your republican speculative fiction short story to:

Australian Republican Movement
PO Box 87
Geebung QLD 4034

Entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not have won another competition.

First prize is $500

Personal Details

Given Name(s) / Surname

_________________________________________________________

Postal address

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

Email address

_________________________________________________________

Story title

_________________________________________________________

Please write the title of your story on each page of your submission

By submitting my entry into the competition I agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the competition. (posted at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/ )

Signature _______________________ Date _________

Entries will be accepted until close of business on 31 August 2010.

Further information contact fiction@republic.org.au or go to http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

2010-05-01T08:56:00.009+10:00

2010 Competition Terms and Conditions

1. Entry is open to all Australian residents. Entry forms can be downloaded from http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com//

2. The purpose of the short story competition is to promote non-constitutional change towards an Australian republic and to remind Australians what they still do not have.

3. The theme for the speculative fiction competition is 'Life and Death in an Australian Republic'. Short stories will be required to portray an Australian republican future.

4. First prize is $500. The First Prize and Short Listed stories are eligible for publication in Republican Roundup and on the ARM website. Copyright of each short story will remain with the author.

5. Entry fee is $11.99 (incl GST). Each additional submission fee is $6.11 (incl GST) Entry fees are to be paid by money order or cheque to Australian Republican Movement. Please do not send cash.

6. Entries must be unpublished and not have won any other awards. Each manuscript entered must meet all of the following requirements:
* Length -- 2000 to 4000 words
* Typed -- double spaced on one side of the paper
* Title Page -- must include your name, address, phone number, story title, length, and email
* Do not submit originals. Manuscripts will not be returned.
* While appropriate colourful language might be accepted (within moderation), entries must not contain extreme foul language, racial or sexually explicit content that would render the entry unsuitable for publication.
* Electronic copies will be accepted at fiction@republic.org.au
* Deadline -- postmarked on or before 31 August 2010 (Advice: enter early -- avoid deadline crush)

7. The competition will be judged by Professor Brian Matthews, Professor John Warhurst, Professor George Williams and Dr Glenn Davies. The judging committee will select the best short stories from the qualified entries and determine the winners. The decision of the judging committee is final.

8. The prize money will be awarded by Australian Republican Movement in accordance with the decision of the judging committee. First Prize will be publicised on 6 November 2010. Each contestant after 6 November 2010 will receive the following information: Name of the competition winner / Name and background of the judges / The 2010 competition statistics

9. Mail signed official entry form and your manuscript (s) on or before 31 August 2010 to: Australian Republican Movement (Qld), PO Box 87, Geebung Q 4034

10. If you have any questions, please feel free to email fiction@republic.org.au or post a blog query at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

Best of luck!

2010-04-17T08:14:00.001+10:00

Second National Republican Short Story Competition begins soon.

Saturday, 1 May 2010 is the launch date for the short story competition. Competition details and theme will be available here then ...

2010-04-14T21:42:00.006+10:00

2010 Judging Panel announced.

The judging panel was announced today for the Second National Republican Short Story Competition. The short story competition will open on 1 May 2010.

Professor Brian Matthews is Honorary Professor of English at Flinders University. He has won the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland Premiers' awards for literature and the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. His most recent book is Manning Clark A Life.

Professor John Warhurst recently concluded fifteen years as Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. He is Adjunct Professor at both ANU and Flinders University, Senior Deputy National Chair, Australian Republican Movement and was ARM National Chair from 2002 to 2005. He also writes a weekly column for the Canberra Times.

Professor George Williams is Anthony Mason Professor of Law and Foundation Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at University of New South Wales. He is a National Committee member, Australian Republican movement and regular reviewer of science fiction and fantasy books for The Book Show on ABC Radio National and for The Weekend Australian.

Dr Glenn Davies is Queensland State Secretary, Australian Republican Movement, a republican historian and author, and a 2008 and 2009 Aurealis Awards Speculative Fiction judge.

2009-11-06T08:09:00.004+10:00

2009 First National Republican Short Story Competition Winner Announced

Kel Robertson is the winner of the 2009 First National Republican Short Story Competition.

2009 is a milestone as it will be 10 years today since the republican referendum was lost. To commemorate this event and to remind Australians what they still don’t have the Australian Republican Movement held the First National Republican Short Story Competition.

Short stories were required to portray an Australian republican future in a positive light and demonstrate the absurdity of a hereditary monarch as the Australian Head of State in twenty-first century Australian society.

The First National Republican Short Story Competition challenged Australia’s fiction writers to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic. Speculative fiction writers deal with possibilities. They speculate. They make the future seem real.

Mr Robertson’s winning short story was titled Rook Feast and tells 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, Mr Robertson’s story explores 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 is written around a discussion of what will be the individual future of the last King of England.

Rook Feast won the First National Republican Short Story Competition on the strength of the writing. The judges agreed Rook Feast was a fine, well-written short story that successfully managed to take in and make much of the required republican theme. He wins $611.99, and his short story will be published on the Australian Republican Movement website at http://www.republic.org.au/

Kel Robertson, 52 lives in Canberra, and is the author of two critically lauded crime novels featuring the Chinese-Australian Federal Police investigator, Brad Chen. 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 I find myself bemused by their activities. It was great fun being able to have some gentle pleasure at their expense.”

The First National Republican Short Story Competition has helped to foster the emerging Australian republican speculative fiction genre. A daily blog was run in conjunction with the First National Republican Short Story Competition as creative stimulus material for writers – see http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/ Each blog detailed an example of Australian republican speculative fiction writing.

Before every great invention and before every great journey is the idea. Without ideas and imagination, we are all trapped in the past. Mr Robertson’s Rook Feast is an exercise in imagination and helps to lead the way into a possible republican future. The Australian Republican Movement congratulates the winner of this year’s competition and extends its thanks to all entrants.

The First National Republican Short Story Competition presentation ceremony will be held on Wednesday evening, 18 November 2009 during the National Republican Lecture, Southern Cross Club, Canberra.

The Republican Short Story Competition will be run again in 2010.

2009-08-31T19:49:00.002+10:00

Republican challenge to Australian writers

The First National Republican Short Story Competition closed today. The winner will be announced on 6 November 2009.

2009 is a milestone as it will be 10 years on 6 November 2009 since the republican referendum was lost. To commemorate this event and to remind Australians what they still don’t have the Australian Republican Movement is running the First National Republican Short Story Competition.

Short stories will be required to portray an Australian republican future in a positive light and demonstrate the absurdity of a hereditary monarch as the Australian Head of State in twenty-first century Australian society.

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 almost no examples where republican settings or arguments have been explored in Australian fiction. Republican arguments and explorations of the past and imaginations of the future are always written within the framework of constitutional debates.

Where do the people of Australia fit into this? Where are their myths and stories to tell and retell and remember about Australia’s emerging republican identity?

This First National Republican Short Story Competition challenges Australia’s fiction writers to speculate on the possible futures of the Australian republic.

Speculative fiction writers deal with possibilities.

They speculate.

They make the future seem real.

However, 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.

So, the ARM (Q) 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.

2009-08-30T17:32:00.002+10:00

One day to go until the First National Republican Short Story Competition closes.

2009-08-28T09:54:00.003+10:00

The Night They Stormed Eureka

Jackie French’s junior fiction novel The Night They Stormed Eureka (2009) starts when Sam, a teenage girl, seeks refuge in a cemetery after having run away from her mother’s abusive boyfriend. In mental and physical pain, Sam imagines what life would have been like for the family of Percival and Elsie Puddleham, their names and dates carved on a headstone she shelters near. The depth of Sam’s longing for love and comfort reaches across the years to meet a yearning for a lost child, and she finds herself in mid-19th century Ballarat, not long before the bloody battle at the Eureka Stockade.

Now in 1854 Sam finds a warm, inviting home with the Puddlehams who run “the best little cook shop on the diggings”. But it was a time of great unrest among the miners on the diggings and Sam is swept up in the Eureka Rebellion, an iconic event on our national heritage landscape.

French’s recreation of the uprising against the British is not the Eureka of history books. She does not know if she’s changed the past or if it was another past. In Sam’s Ballarat the Eureka rebellion was really about turning Australia into a republic, rather than an uprising of miners over compulsory mining licence fees. And while there were only 120 men left in the stockade when it was eventually stormed, in The Night They Stormed Eureka this was because thousands were lured to different parts of the camp through trickery.

At the end of the story, Sam awakens in the graveyard to a concerned friend and worried teacher who, suspecting she was homeless, have been looking for her. Experiencing Eureka has changed Sam and, for the first time, she reaches out for help. What she learns at Eureka is that when you stand together, you can change the world.

Readers will be drawn into this world of treacle dumplings, pink bonnets, injustice, dreams and courage. Along with the Dickensian characters there are themes of race, equality, democracy and freedom. French states this is a story 'with historical background, not history’. Readers from 10 years and up couldn’t do better than read this novel to feel the texture of the event that almost turned us on the path to republicanism.

2009-08-26T13:06:00.004+10:00

Five days to go until the First National Republican Short Story Competition closes.

2009-08-24T21:38:00.002+10:00

The 1954 Royal Tour

Queen Elizabeth II is the only reigning British monarch to have set foot on terra australis. On the gold and blue morning of 3 February 1954, in the presence of a massive crowd, one million and more, she cam ashore at Farm Cove. This journey through Australia would be the longest single part of a six-month post-Coronation tour through twelve Commonwealth countries. In the eight weeks allotted to Australia, the Queen and her husband travelled to every capital city bar Darwin, and to seventy country towns.

In Janet Withers 2008 One Brisbane One Story short story “Winged Feet” it’s 1954, Queen Elizabeth is coming to Brisbane, and Flora’s school will participate in the welcome dance pageant. But how can she reconcile this with her father’s anti-royalist views? And should his socialist ideals prevail to move the family from the beautiful Clayfield home and garden that her mother loves?

When I told my father that the Queen was coming to visit he exploded. ‘The Queen! Down with the Queen and the Monarchy. She’s not even a reader, the Queen. She reads the Women’s Weekly and has trouble digesting that.’ …

‘Banish from under your bonny skies / Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies,’ quoted Dad from Henry Lawson. ‘We want a classless society, where all are free and equally educated. Down with the Queen and all she stands for!’

Conflict and loyalty are explored in “Winged Feet” amid a chorus of birds and a remembered streetscape of trees and flowers that add sparkle to this unconventional family story.

2009-08-20T18:44:00.004+10:00

Perverse Acts

Camilla Nelson’s comic novel Perverse Acts (1998) depicts an Australian republic with a ceremonial President and a government that must build coalitions of support among the many small parties represented in parliament.

It is set in the Australian Parliament and deals with political machinations in a future republic. The narrative is related in turn by Venus and M. M is a young male Member of the House of Representatives who quickly becomes a Parliamentary Secretary and then a Cabinet Minister. His plans to become Prime Minister are eventually thwarted by Lucretia, the only female MP in ‘the Party’ and a member of a rival faction. Venus is an ambitious ministerial staffer who works for several ministers, including M, with whom she has a sexual relationship. When Lucretia wins, Venus transfers to her staff.

Until Lucretia’s leadership bid, the government has steadily lost ground in the electorate. Part of the cause of this growing unpopularity is the government’s attempt to get its Freedom from Government Bill, an advanced privatisation measure, through the Senate. There it needs the support of the Reverend Warren Weedon’s Circle of Light Party. The price for Weedon’s support is a growing list of legal restrictions on sex and fertility, beginning with a debate on his Single Mothers Obliteration Bill, which would force unmarried pregnant women to have abortions, then support for an amendment to prevent single women and lesbians from accessing IVF, and finally a law to force ‘single women to become born-again virgins’. Lucretia’s popularity as challenger for the prime ministership is boosted by her opposition to the deals between the Government and Weedon and is undiminished when she outs herself as a lesbian.

Nelson’s Australian republic seems to be based on the minimalist model, particularly with regard to the powers of the President. Presidents have simply replaced Governors-General. The incumbent President remains unnamed and hardly appears throughout the novel. He is ensconced in the old vice regal house at Yarralumla, where his official duties seem limited to swearing in new ministers.

Political power in Nelson’s republican Australia remains firmly centred on the Prime Minister and Cabinet and their ministerial and public service advisers. The major legislative challenge for governments is still to steer bills through Parliament, hence the importance of Weedon’s Circle of Light. The Republic (or later constitutional amendment) has changed some institutions--federalism has been done away with, and the High Court’s independence removed - but these developments are only mentioned in passing. They have no bearing on the activities of governing, which take place almost entirely within Parliament House.

Nelson depicts her republic as a cosmetic change to a corrupted game of politics. She sees power primarily in terms of gender rather than economic structures and suggests more open-ended possibilities for her imagined political institutions. Nelson indicates at least the chance that a new type of political leadership will emerge in an imagined future republic.

2009-08-19T19:32:00.004+10:00

Melbourne, 12 August 2992

Henry Crocker Marriott Watson wrote a number of novels during the late nineteenth century in the utopian genre. He was born in Tasmania in 1835, but lived mainly in Victoria where he was ordained as a clergyman. His first novel was Erchomenon, or the republic of materialism (1879). Eutopia is set six hundred years in the future in which everyone lives in cities, there is a religion of humanity based on Auguste Comte (1798-1857), and children are raised by women other than their natural mother.

In 1890, Watson wrote The decline and fall of the British Empire or, The witch's cavern. The novel is set in the future and begins with “A letter of explanation”, dated, “Melbourne, 12 August 2992” by William Furley. Furley’s letter sets the scene for the narrative of his experiences.

In the world of 2992 British civilisation survives most strongly in Australia, which is now an independent republic with an elected president. The continent has been developed extensively and is a garden spot, with Eyreton as a new inland capital. Trade flourishes extensively with China, which provides raw materials in exchange for Australian manufactures. While Furley does not describe material culture extensively, there are electric land cars and fairly fast air transportation.

Having finished his education in 2988 Furley decides to travel, first visiting Tasmania and then Africa where the population shows signs of racial mixture. Along with his fiancee and Professor Fowler, a historian, he next visits England, the home of the British people. England has gone primitive. Population has decreased enormously, with London consisting of some twenty thousand people who live amid ruins, and with little evidence of the high civilisation of a thousand years earlier. Wolves range through the land and are a particular menace in the north. The land is ruled by Prince Albert, and rank is still important, despite the overall shabby, neo-primitive nature of the culture.

As the travellers wander about they find that Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament have completely vanished. One of the causes for the degeneration of England was a change in the Gulf Stream, which with the opening of the Panama Canal altered its course and now flows into the Pacific.

As Furley wanders about he sees a large white hare which he follows down into a great cavern where he meets the witch, or Sibyl, as she is sometimes called. She shows him visions and gives him a ring to protect him. He then awakens along with certain of his Australian friends and companions in London of the 1890s.

The heart of the book consists of Furley’s experiences and observations in the collapsing late nineteenth century world. He obtains a job as a journalist on the London Express and sees much of the contemporary misery. While admitting that society is in a bad way, the author takes a conservative position on political economy and religion. When a speaker at a public meeting states the socialist interpretation of history with recommendations for improvement, Furley stands forth and addresses the meeting in reply. His rejoinder to the thesis that capitalists are parasites is that wealth was really created by the capitalists through hard toil. As remedies for the nation’s ills he recommends hard work, thrift, and temperance. England collapses. Strikes break out. In a short time a mammoth demonstration ushers in the Great Revolution. The Sibyl shows Furley spot scenes of the future debacle. Eventually, the better people leave England, migrating to the colonies.

Furley awakens back in his own era. He declares that when Australia becomes overpopulated, he and his fiancee will return to England to repopulate and recivilise it. The author’s point of view is a mixture of social democracy, laissez faire capitalism, and limited reform.

2009-08-17T18:43:00.008+10:00

A Song of the Republic

Henry Lawson was one of Australia's greatest writers. His interest in the republican movement was sparked by his exposure to the radicalism of friends of his mother, Louisa. In 1887 he became titular publisher of the Republican. In the aftermath of the republican riots in Sydney in 1887, he penned his first published poem "A Song of the Republic". The poem appeared in The Bulletin, 1 October 1887 and on Saturday, 15 October 1887 in The Republican. Other republican poems by Lawson included “The Statue of Our Queen” (1890), and “The English Queen” (1892).

Lawson was of course not a political theorist; rather, he was the voice of an "Australian sentiment" that put to words the yearnings of the radical nationalists of his day. Lawson was aware that to achieve independence, identity and a just social order, a Republic was the only form of government.

Sons of the South, awake! arise!

Sons of the South, and do.

Banish from under your bonny skies

Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies.

Making a hell in a Paradise

That belongs to your sons and you.

Sons of the South, make choice between

(Sons of the South, choose true),

The Land of Morn and the Land of E'en,

The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green,

The Land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,

And the Land that belongs to you.

Sons of the South, your time will come –

Sons of the South, 'tis near –

The "Signs of the Times", in their language dumb,

Fortell it, and ominous whispers hum

Like sullen sounds of a distant drum,

In the ominous atmosphere.

Sons of the South, aroused at last!

Sons of the South are few!

But your ranks grow longer and deeper fast,

And ye shall swell to an army vast,

And free from the wrongs of the North and Past

The land that belongs to you.

2009-08-13T21:56:00.002+10:00

Kisses of the Enemy

Rodney Hall’s Kisses of the Enemy (1987) is set in the future in the newly created Republic of Australia headed by an elected president whose power finally diminishes that of parliament. Hall portrays his republic as corrupted from birth by the power of international capital and specifically satirises and warns against the dangers of a powerful directly elected President.

The central political story begins with the success of the 1992 Republic Referendum and the election in 1993 of Bernard Buchanan, a real estate developer, as the Republic’s first President. Buchanan’s selection as candidate and his campaign are organised by the political minder Luigi Squarcia and business leader William Penhallurick. Both Squarcia and Penhallurick in turn work on behalf of IFID (Interim Freeholdings Incorporated of Delaware) a shadowy multinational corporation. IFID has worldwide strategic interests that include the Paringa military and communications base in Australia.

The Republic is marked by growing authoritarianism, military control and social squalor. It is punctuated by disasters, such as the tidal wave that smashes into Eden as a result of IFID experiments with gravitational weaponry.

As the state becomes more self-propagating, Buchanan fearful of real and imagined enemies. He grows so huge that he cannot see the ground and must be carried even to the bathroom by six aides, while he declaims: "I am the State." By now, he is infested by mice that gnaw at his entrails but at least, he thinks, he is feeling something.

While he has opponents within the political elite, his position remains safe as long as he retains IFID’s support. Resistance to Buchanan and IFID comes from a guerrilla group led by Peter Taverner (‘the Wild Dog’). Tensions between Buchanan and IFID grow. Buchanan attempts to govern alone, leaving the power to issue a licence required by IFID solely in his hands.
Buchanan is eventually brought down from a different quarter, during nationally televised divorce proceedings initiated by his wife Dorina. his sensitive, enigmatic wife Dorina, who lives separately, is inspired by disgust for Buchanan to provoke, in an uncharacteristic move, a "showdown" - enough has been enough. At the novel’s close, new presidential elections are under way, with a new unsuspecting front candidate for IFID the likely winner.

Kisses of the Enemy depicts the development of Australian political institutions under a directly elected President in nightmarishly authoritarian terms. Hall’s novel anticipates many of the fears expressed by opponents of a direct election model in Australian republican debates during the 1990s. Rather than a US-style balancing of powers between legislature and executive, in Hall’s republic the presidential powers simply overwhelm Parliament.

2009-08-07T20:05:00.009+10:00

Preambles - imagining the republic

In 1999 a preamble written by Les Murray was offered to, and rejected by, the Australian community as part of the referendum on a republic. On 8 June 2003 the Preamble Project was launched at the Museum of Sydney.

The Preamble Project began as a conversation between the writer James Bradley and other republicans about the need to provide some imaginative foundation for the ongoing debate about an Australian Republic. In the course of that conversation the idea was floated of inviting several writers to draft preambles to a republican Constitution as a way of giving voice to some of the deeper impulses an Australian Republic might embody.

In the creation of an Australian Republic, the underlying source of authority is the democratic will of the Australian people. The Constitution of that Republic will be the expression of that will and embodies our values and aspirations. And so, in setting forth its unifying purpose the preamble to a republican Constitution must give voice to the deeper impulses that underlie its creation. It must, in other words, tell us the story of who we are.

Six writers offered individual statements reflecting their vision for Australia, its land and people.

James Bradley begins his statement with a pledge of allegiance to "the land, the sea [and] the sky".

Peter Carey declares that Australia is a nation "engendered by a foreign king, by foreign wars, by happenstance [and] by a once great empire which also bequeathed us our first rich cultural inheritance". Perhaps predictably for a writer who has spent his career probing the ambiguities in the Australian national identity, he chooses to make clear the contradictions in our past and our present, exhorting us to draw strength from these contradictions, and to recognise in them the bond that we must make if we are to draw strength from ourselves.

For Richard Flanigan the preamble becomes something more like a national prayer, an exhortation to find meaning in our past and in the land that we share, and to make ourselves anew through the medium of our shared love of that land. It is unashamedly romantic, not just in its language and imagery, buth with its explicit belief in the idea of the republic as an act of the imagination.

Delia Falconer and Dorothy Porter by contrast offer more plainsong approaches to the question. Delia Falconer compresses her feelings into a single sentence, trying to draw together the many impulses a republic might embody, acting finally to remind our elected representatives that their power stems from our will, and no higher source. Dorothy Porter also seeks to express the values the republic might embody by reference to the popular will, but unlike Delia Falconer she chooses to couch her contribution in a series of commitments we choose to make as one people, commitments as to what we will try to be, thus transforming itself into a statement of principles, giving heed to our history only as a thing from which we might learn, but never be hostage to.

Leah Purcell's contribution opens in the language of the Kamilaroi and Gungarri people and continues in English, calling for respect for pioneers, immigrants, the land and its first peoples. Eschewing grand gestures altogether it enjoins us all to a shared respect for each other's rights and histories, thereby providing a basis for the trust upon which a Republic might find itself.

Through productive discussions of what sort of preamble we would like to have comes a discussion of the meaning an Australian Republic might ultimately hold for all of us.

The full text of the six preambles can be read at http://tasmaniantimes.com/jurassic/preamble.html

2009-08-05T12:58:00.009+10:00

Republican dogfights

Anthony Nguyen's short story 'Australia's Raptors' opens on Friday, 12 August 2016 in the airspace above the Taiwan Straits where the F-22 Raptor in service with the Federal Republican Air Force of Australia during WWIII.

Strap on your flight suit and helmet, sit back on your ejection seats and propel yourself into the world of 21st century dogfights as a combat pilot in the Federal Republican Airforce of Australia. Read full story at http://www.scribd.com/doc/13083571/Australias-Raptors

2009-08-01T12:54:00.003+10:00

The First President

In Valda Marshall's 2009 novel it is the year 1920. The Prince of Wales is visiting Adelaide as part of his royal tour of Australia, and the royal party is staying at Adelaide’s Government House. Extra house staff is hired for the important visit, and Lily, a beautiful young country girl, is one of them. When Lily comes face to face with the Prince, history is forever changed.

Fast forward to the year 2016. Noelene Jones, one of Australia’s most celebrated opera singers, has decided to retire from the world of entertainment and is looking forward to the quiet life. She decides that her first project as a regular citizen will be to renovate and bring back to life her grandmother’s dilapidated cottage in the Adelaide Hills.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, a man of cunning with an over-inflated ego, is busy trying to orchestrate the country’s historic and complicated transition from Monarchy to Republic. The biggest question on everyone’s lips is: who will become the First President?

Noelene, although a staunch republic supporter, has no interest in the job. But the Australian public has other ideas … and Mike, a friendly reporter who is making a documentary about Noelene’s life, is overly encouraging. But when Mike and Noelene investigate an interesting discovery at her Adelaide Hills cottage, the line between Monarchy and Republic becomes inextricably tangled...

Part love story, part political satire, The First President: An Australian Story of Love and Politics provides an interesting preview of the possible future of our nation as a republic.

2009-07-31T22:42:00.002+10:00

Republic of women

Republic of Women is a novel that questions the basis of contemporary Western thought. Merrill Findlay's novel rejects Plato's Republic and its influence on modern life and chooses an ideal made from the interwoven beliefs of a pseudo-family of distinctive characters.

Republic of Women centres around a small community of friends and neighbours in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. Findlay comments that she wrote much of her first novel at "one of Melbourne's most significant cultural institutions," Leo's Spaghetti Bar, located in the bayside suburb of St Kilda, the area where she resides.

Republic of Women is a continuous celebration of women’s creativity, in the meaning of both women’s skills and artistic talent, and capacity to procreate. The lives of Marie, Elle and Lillian constantly intersect with the lives of the goddesses of Sumerian-Babylonian, Greek and Roman mythologies; they develop in parallels with the lives of historical figures such as Alphonsine Plessis, Anita Garibaldi, Giuseppina Strepponi and Nellie Melba. Findlay makes sure she always foregrounds these women, reaffirming various forms of greatness, which have all too often been understated in public history written by men.

There are affinities between Merrill Findlay's Republic of Women and Plato's Republic. Neither has a plot, although both contain novelistic elements such as characters, conflicts and themes. In both texts the dynamic discussion of ideas comprises the action. Findlay also derives her central focus - the oppression of women throughout history - from Plato, charging that when he "defined the future in his own image," he paid little attention to women who, during the Athenian period, were a suppressed lot. Confined to their houses and not formally educated, they could play no part in politics, vote, hold property, participate in or even attend (some say) athletic games or theatrical performances. It was also Plato's student Aristotle who recorded in his Poetics that women may be said to be "inferior beings, mere vessels for male seed". Yet Findlay's imagined recreation of the lives of dozens of brilliant women artists and musicians (drawn from both fiction and "real life") demonstrates that it was their marginalized status that proved disadvantageous. She tells the stories of these talented women in the form of discontinuous narratives, a style many readers will appreciate, for their lives were unrelentingly bleak. At every turn, they were betrayed.

The novel is not entirely bleak, however, for like Plato's disciples, Findlay's characters also consider how to construct a successful society. As they work and love and play, Marie and her friends explore alternative ways of living in their threatened inner-city environment. In doing so they question the philosophical basis of much contemporary western thought, rejecting the tenets of Plato's ideal republic and its continuing hold on the politics of today. The shared joys and tragedies of their daily lives are interwoven with a rich plenitude of stories and myths from the past, in a compelling narrative that culminates in an emotionally charged and satisfying finale. The women conclude that, although much of St Kilda is being destroyed by postmodernist trendiness, it nonetheless remains a vital and fulfilling place to live. Further, they view the community as contributing to a new country which has the potential for greatness, to be the kind of society that has never existed before. And they might be right.

In his Republic, Plato had put forward a model of an ideal, and therefore difficult to implement society, in a period in which he, himself, was forced to acknowledge the flaws of Athenian democracy, as well as the decline of the Greek empire. In a century, which until its very end, has witnessed unspeakable atrocities, in a world where it does not yet seem possible to end racial and sex discrimination, and in a country – in this novel, Australia – which is yet to make a public apology for the massacres and mistreatments of its indigenous people, how could it be possible to envisage a community truly free from prejudice and violence, and supported by the creativity and imagination of its members?

A Republic of Women is the notion conceived by the three protagonists of this novel: an optimistic, rather than utopian, notion. The envisaged society is one where marginalisation, on any ground, would be ruled out, and where the accepted idea of “freedom” would be inseparable from principles of ethics and harmony. Above all, this society would be bold enough to go beyond the barriers of the conventions established by still-patriarchal community structures, and would rely instead on women’s creative potential.

In Republic of Women Findlay asks the questions - "Who are we, where have we come from, where are we going to?" and ultimately proposes some fascinating possibilities.

2009-07-30T22:20:00.006+10:00

Australia's first directly elected president

Alternate history is a subgenre of science fiction that contains elements of historical fiction and sometimes time travel, but is unique in that it extrapolates upon how, if a given event is changed, the course of history will be altered from that point forward.

In A. Bertram Chandler’s Kelly Country the narrator is sent back in time, into the mind of his great-grandfather, in order to be able to write an eyewitness account of the Siege of Glenrowan, his ancestor having been among those present in Ma Jones’s pub on that occasion. He somehow gets control of his great-grandfather’s mind and interferes, stopping Thomas Curnow from flagging down the special train, not realising that by doing so he has changed history. As a result of his intervention the Australian Revolution succeeds because the rebels receive considerable help from the United States. The Harp in the South Committee – with Ned Kelly’s famous cousin, Buffalo Bill as its figurehead – raises money and volunteers. Francis Bannerman – the world’s first international secondhand arms dealer – supplies weaponry. Certain officers of the American army regard the war in Australia as an ideal opportunity for trying out newfangled devices in somebody else’s country – Andrews airships, steam-operated Gatling cannons, and primitive tanks with steam-driven, armoured traction engines. When the narrator returns to his present he realises the success of the Australian Revolution has changed the history of Australia and to a lesser extent the world.

At Othertimelines.com there have been a number of alternate history timelines written that explore an alternate Australian republic. Below is an extract from an alternate history where the Sir John Kerr is the last Governor-General of Australia and elected as the first Australian president in 1975:

Event Date: 1-1-1975
An election called by Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to end the stalemate results in a victory for his Labour Party. The Labourite majority in the House is increased and the Liberal-Country coalition loses its control of the Senate.

Event Date: 28-2-1975
The Australian House of Representatives passes a bill calling for a plebiscite on the issue of the monarchy and Australia's ties to Great Britain.

Event Date: 3-3-1975
The Senate passes the same bill by a sizable margin.

Event Date: 27-5-1975
Australian voters decide to abolish the monarchy and declare Australia a republic. A presidential election will be held on September 1st.

Event Date: 1-9-1975
Sir John Kerr, the last Governor-General of Australia, wins the presidential election over 2 Liberal opponents, former Prime Ministers John Gorton and William McMahon. Kerr gets 53%, followed by 35% for McMahon and 12% for Gorton.

See http://www.othertimelines.com/viewtimeline.php?timelineID=660 for the full alternate history timeline.

2009-07-26T21:44:00.004+10:00

What if?

Historians seem to enjoy imagining history as it might have been, and it's this 'what if' theme that is taken up by prominent Australian historians, in a collection of counterfactual histories edited by Sean Scalmer and Stuart McIntyre called What if: Australian History as it might have been.

In Stuart McIntyre's counterfactual, Australia's entry into the First World War is pre-empted by a Pearl Harbour-like attack on Australian troop ships in the Cocos Islands, well before they reach Gallipoli. In the shock that follows, Billy Hughes stubbornly rallies his nation to the cause of empire.

On the other hand, Helen Irving imagines what might have happened if Australia's initial attempt at Federation did not win British approval, and was therefore deferred until 1910. Rather than Alfred Deakin, Irving has the irracible Billy Hughes bring Australia together as a nation. Greater confidence in nationhood leads to a less obstructionist senate, paving the way for Australia to become a republic by 1980.

What If has the consequence of essentialising history, creating an opposition between what really happened and what writers imagine might have happened.

Australia is still at heart a speculative enterprise.

2009-07-25T23:02:00.006+10:00

The Whitlam Republic

Alternate history is a subgenre of science fiction that contains elements of historical fiction and sometimes time travel, but is unique in that it extrapolates upon how, if a given event is changed, the course of history will be altered from that point forward.

On Tuesday, 11 November 1975, the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, dismissed Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister and appointed Malcolm Fraser as a caretaker Prime Minister. For the first time, an unelected vice-regal representative had removed from office a government which commanded a majority in the House of Representatives. As a result a double dissolution election was held on 13 December 1975, at which the Whitlam Government was soundly defeated.

The Dismissal of the Whitlam Government on 11 November 1975 was the most dramatic political event in the history of Australia's Federation and remains a controversial subject in Australian history. The dismissal is central to any understanding of the current debate about becoming a republic.

At http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Lab/3771/ind.html David Atwell has written an alternate history timeline that explores the creation of an Australian republic after the events of the 1975 Dismissal.

2009-07-24T08:09:00.005+10:00

Who’ll hoist the Flag of Stars

Ned Kelly has become an Australian folk hero for his defiance of the colonial authorities. Born in Victoria to an Irish convict father, as a young man he clashed with the police. Following an incident at his home in 1878, police parties searched for him in the bush. After he murdered three policemen, the colony proclaimed Kelly and his gang wanted outlaws. A final violent confrontation with police took place at Glenrowan. Kelly, dressed in home-made plate metal armour and helmet, was captured and sent to jail where he was hanged for murder at Old Melbourne Gaol in 1880.

The Kelly gang had many active supporters and a wide following. It has been said Kelly was forced into bushranging by the police who were looking to shoot him. Kelly and his gang robbed banks rather than robbing common folk. The radical thoughts of the Australian bushranger Ned Kelly were evident in the hour of his capture when the police took from his pocket a declaration for a Republic of North Eastern Victoria!

It was Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter that showed elements of a manifesto and a foreshadowing of a rebellion. In 1879 the Kelly gang held up the town of Jerilderie, New South Wales. Months prior to arriving in Jerilderie, and with help from his mate Joe Byrne, Kelly had dictated a lengthy letter for publication describing his view of his activities and the treatment of his family and, more generally, the treatment of Irish Catholics by the police and the English and Irish Protestant squatters. The Jerilderie Letter contains language that is colourful, rough and full of metaphors and has become a famous piece of Australian literature.

In the time since his execution, Ned Kelly has been mythologised among some into a Robin Hood, a political revolutionary and a figure of Irish Catholic and working-class resistance to the establishment and British colonial ties. This can be summed up in the lyrics from 1980s folk rock band, Redgum

But no one single handed
Can hope to break the bars
It's a thousand like Ned Kelly
Who'll hoist the Flag of Stars

2009-07-23T22:09:00.004+10:00

Assassinate the President

In the Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine Aurealis, 20/21, April 1998 a special double issue speculated on the possible futures of an Australian republic. SF is, afterall, the 'literature of ideas'. Below is an extract from Robert Hood's, 'Occasional Demons'

.... I toss the antique magazine back to him. "Impossible. She's been dead for what? A decade or so?"

"Security ID gives an 94.7% verification. Do you know what that means?"

Of course I did. But it was still impossible. "Has to be a genetic remake. I saw Elvis Presley at the New Trocadero last week. Dead spit, he was." Digalle huffs, but the scorn's gone before I can protest. "A hologram?" I suggest.

"Do you think we wouldn't sift out the obvious, long before we'd resort to you? Genetic remakes can't catch the nuances. Holograms are unstable. Security ID says it's her."

"The real thing?"

He shrugs. "As you say, it can't be her. But we don't have any alternatives that the analysis programs like."

I get up from behind my desk and wander to the window. Canberra looks stark under the exposed sun, even with the filters running at maximum. "So Princess Di is skulking about the President's house. What's he worried about? That she wants to assassinate him?"...

2009-07-22T10:55:00.006+10:00

Republic referendum wins!

At Othertimelines.com there have been a number of alternate history timelines written that explore an alternate Australian republic. Below is an extract from an alternate history where the 1999 republican referendum was successful:

Event Date: 16-11-1999

In a nationwide referendum the Australian public chooses to become a republic and no longer become a member of the British Commonwealth. The majority is slim however. Only 52.3% are for and 47.7% are against. The Prime Minister, John Howard and Governor General both step down in honor of the new Australian Republic.

Event Date: 17-11-1999

Immediately new elections are to be held for The Australian Republic on the 4th of February. John Howard will remain caretaker Prime Minister until then. The result has sent shock waves throughout the Commonwealth, most people expecting Australia to stay a member. Many in New Zealand expect a referendum soon, as do many in Papua New Guinea and Canada.

Event Date: 21-11-1999

A new Australian flag is commissioned. Its design is that of which many expected should the Republican camp win - dark green in the top left corner and gold in the bottom right corner. A white Southern Cross constellation is in the green half and a large ten-pointed star is in the gold half. Most Australians seem content with the decision to become a republic, although there is talk amongst the native aboriginal community of harsher treatment now that Australia has left the commonwealth.

Event Date: 4-12-1999

The Australian Labour Party (currently in opposition) says that their leader, Kim Beazley will run for President in the February elections. There is speculation that young Liberal party member John Hobbs may run for the Presidency. This speculation has worried many poor and aboriginal people due to his hard line poverty and race relation’s ideas.
See http://www.othertimelines.com/viewtimeline.php?timelineID=3231 for the full alternate history timeline.

2009-07-21T10:01:00.008+10:00

You don't vote for Kings!

As Monty Python said, "You don't vote for Kings!" So the question is then how do you become the elected King of Australia?

On the weekend of 11-12 July 2009, Australia's own home-grown king along with his nobles and courtiers took to the Field of St Michael's, during the Abbey Medieval Festival. This is the largest authentic medieval re-enactment event in Australia. It spans a thousand years from Europe's Dark Ages to the High Middle Ages, roughly AD600 to 1600. In 2007, approximately 18,500 people participated in the weekend Tournament outside Caboolture, north of Brisbane.

The Australian Crown on the field came into being in 2000, when the Baronry's, Shire's, College's, and Canton's of Australia voted in favour to advance to Kingdom status, to split from the Kingdom of the West (the West coast US) and rule themselves as the Kingdom of Lochac. As the seventeenth kingdom of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a historical re-creation and living history group founded in California in 1966 which recreates pre-17th century Western European history, life and culture of the landed nobility, the Kingdom of Lochac encompasses all Australian states and New Zealand.

Viscount Baronress Mistress Rowan Perigrynne said at the time, "I love the West and always will, as a child loves its parents. Yet every child grows up and makes their own way in the world, and the parents rejoice to see them stand on their own! I believe we are ready to make the next step, take the next challenge, and celebrate the dawn of the Kingdom of Lochac. This would truly be the fulfillment of my dream of so many years ago."

Yolande Kesteven also said, "I know that Lochac is a part of the Kingdom of the West, and that makes a difference to me when I swear fealty, when I give the Royal Toast, do Princess things, and when I call for three cheers in my student Heralding moments. But these are the only times it really makes a difference to me. For the rest of the time, there is only Lochac. And while the West is very dear to me, it is a separate place, far away".

The echoes of the arguments put forward for the Yes vote in the 1999 republican referendum resound clearly through these comments. As Australia matures as a nation there comes a time when the child grows up and cuts the apron strings. A year after the defeat of the 1999 referendum the Lochac Kingdom Poll was successful.

The Australian Crown of Lochac is chosen in a different way to that of the British Crown. To become King of Lochac a candidate must win a Crown Tournament, that is through combat on the field, to hold the Crown for a period of six months. Of course, this was not how medieval monarchs were chosen. Certainly many Kings were crowned after having conquered a kingdom through right of arms, but the crown tournament model of selecting Kings is purely a SCA process.

Even though Monty Python's character King Arthur said it was by divine providence that he became King through presentation of Excalibur by the Lady in the Lake, the Anglo-Saxon Kings were actually elected by the witan, a group of self-interested land holders who could raise a large enough fighting force to cause trouble if they didn't get their own way. This process of appointment through consent is not unique but certainly unusual. Britain had twice been momentarily an elective monarchy, in the sense that new monarchs were appointed by a process of consent - William-and-Mary and George 1. Maybe three times, insofar as George VI succeeded Edward VIII not strictly by hereditary right but by the explicit consent of the governments of the Empire.

Of course, a monarch ruling over Australian's is an absurd fiction, whether it is a right of arms medieval re-enactment King, or the hereditary British monarch. Although the nobles of Lochac may enjoy the pagentry of recreating times gone by, for those of us in the mundane world the sooner Australian's create a republic the better.

2009-07-20T07:25:00.009+10:00

A Lunar Republic

Today is the 40th anniversary of human's landing on the moon.

The official website of The Lunar Republic is at http://www.lunarrepublic.com/

Worth a look for a bit of fun!

2009-07-18T23:07:00.004+10:00

An Australian republican future

In Ken Harris's Pathway to Treason it is the year 2020 and Australia is a republic with a President joining the Prime Minister at the helm of the country, although as with the Governor General before, the President is supposedly merely a figurehead, a rubberstamp when it comes to the question of running the country.

Peter Elphinstone, ex-test cricketeer and President of Australia is far from satisfied with the way the country is being run. Prime Minister Bill Packard is far from pleased with the President sticking his beak into matters that shouldn't concern him. When the Australian ambassador to Syria is assassinated, the PM is all fired up to join the US in sending troops to the Middle East should America ask him. Elphinstone, on the other hand, is horrified that a war could be about to start and moves to stop the possibility. Technically the President has the authority to affect such a decision, the big question is, does he have the power? It's his willingness to have this question answered that ignites the political fireball.

The remainder of the novel revolves around the head to head battle between Packard and Elphinstone as the entire seat of government is threatened.

We need more of these Australian stories with a republican backdrop. They don't have to be political thrillers or constitutional whodunnits but rather an exploration of our future, our republican future.

2009-07-17T14:38:00.007+10:00

Presidentsland

If Australia were to become a republic would Queensland be called Presidentsland?

Presidentsland explores the often-contemplated and always contentitious subject of what our future will look, feel, smell, taste and, of course, sound like.

When: 8pm, Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Where: Brisbane City Hall - part of Queensland Music Festival

Cost: Full $38 - $58 / Concession $28 - $48. To book call 136 246 or visit http://www.qmf.org.au/

This contemporary concert in three parts features collaborations between Australia's most innovative composers and authors: jazz maestro Paul Grabowsky with speech writer Don Watson (pictured); avant-garde composer Erik Griswold with poet and novelist Rodney Hall; and The Saints guitarist Ed Kuepper with novelist Venero Armanno.

Presidentsland will shine a well-focussed high beam into the future. One performance only.

2009-07-13T16:20:00.003+10:00

Singing the republican blues

In Alison Goodman’s Singing the Dogstar Blues she sets her 1998 debut novel in an Australian republican future.

Joss Aaronson has two loves in her life: playing the blues and training at the prestigious Centre for Neo-Historical Studies to jump through time.It is at the Centre, on the old Melbourne University campus, Daniel Sunawa-Harrod is reputed to discover the Time-Continuum Warp Field. “On the 10/10/50, the 50th anniversary of Australian Independence Day, Danny receives the Nobel-Takahini Prize for Science”.

Then Mavkel, the first alien student on Earth, selects her to be his time-travel partner and Joss’s life gets a lot more complicated. There’s an assassin on campus, an anti-alien lobby group chanting slogans, and Joss is constantly being tracked by the tight security around her new friend.

The Chorians, an alien people, wish to exchange the technology they have in the field of time and space with the Centre’s knowledge of time-travel. A deputation from Choria brings their chosen candidate, Mavkel, to pair with a suitable student at the Centre to do the course. Joss is chosen and the story unfolds through her eyes.

Life with Mavkel is not all bad, though. Music-loving Joss is fascinated by him and his people, the Chorians, who communicate through song. But Mavkel is pining for his lost twin, and his will to live is draining away. Joss wants to help him, and that means going back to the petri dish where it all began.

She’s playing with history, but if Mavkel doesn’t survive, then Joss could really be singing the blues …

2009-07-11T23:13:00.003+10:00

Keeping the Meter Running

In the Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine Aurealis, 20/21, April 1998 a special double issue speculated on the possible futures of an Australian republic. SF is, afterall, the 'literature of ideas'. Below is an extract from Geoffrey maloney's 'Keeping the Meter Running'.

On the morning of the 40th anniversary of the People's Democratic Revolution Jerzhi Kapuscinski woke up feeling like a piece of beef jerky that had been left out in the sun for far too long. He had drunk himself into a stupor at the Hari Krishna Club the night before, celebrating the ned of the Revolutionary year with his colleagues from the Bureau of State Security ...

2009-07-10T07:40:00.004+10:00

Kelly Country - an Australian future?

What if Ned Kelly escaped police capture in 1880 and led a successful Irish-Australian rebellion against British authority? A. Bertram Chandler’s novel Kelly Country (1984) explores an alternate history in which the bush ranger Ned Kelly was not captured and hanged but led a successful revolution, ultimately becoming the president of an Australian republic, which degenerated into a hereditary dictatorship with the result that Australia becomes a world power.

The books synopsis centres around a mental time traveller who organises Kelly's escape. In the nineteenth century, Ned Kelly (and friends) lead a revolution against corrupt colonial government in order to establish a republic. They use various technologies available at the time (but not all widely used), including a precursor to airships, rail and gatling guns. A number of other historical figures, events and technologies affect the story. This book fits into the SF genre of Steampunk.

The story shifts between the nineteenth century and modern times. When the time traveller wakes up the world has changed with Australia rather than the United States embroiled in the Vietnam War. All because Curnow never stopped the train (he ended up getting his brains bashed in instead)! The Australia has now shifted to a future where "The Kelly" is a hereditary dictator.

Arthur Bertram Chandler (28 March 1912–6 June 1984) was an Australian science fiction author. Born in Aldershot, England, he was a merchant marine officer, sailing the world in everything from tramp steamers to troopships. Chandler emigrated to Australia in 1956 and became an Australian citizen. He commanded various ships in the Australian and New Zealand merchant navies, and was the last master of the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne as the law required that it have an officer on board while it was laid up waiting to be towed to China to be broken up. Chandler wrote over 40 novels and 200 works of short fiction. He was most well-known for his John Grimes novels and for the Rim World series, which have a distinctly naval flavour. He won Ditmar Awards for the short story The Bitter Pill (in 1971) and for three novels False Fatherland (in 1969), The Bitter Pill (in 1975), and The Big Black Mark (in 1976).

‘Kelly Country’ was originally published as a short story in Void, 3 May 1976 and received a Ditmar nomination and was the basis of the novel of the same name.

2009-07-09T22:30:00.003+10:00

It’s a knockout

In New Statesman, 9 July 2009, Michael Hodges reports from the future on the end of hereditary monarchy in 2020 and how the British people are about to elect their first king or queen. See http://www.newstatesman.com/life-and-society/2009/07/british-king-queen-monarchy

Tonight will decide everything. Thirty million Britons – and many more millions throughout the world – are expected to watch. It is a staggering figure, a record British television audience, but these are staggering times. Hereditary monarchy has been abolished and the nation is on the edge of a momentous decision: we are about to vote for our next king or queen.

Pressure for an end to the monarchy built inexorably when Prince Charles came to the throne in 2009, refusing to allow his son to take the crown, even though the Queen had made it known it was her wish when she abdicated.

The king’s subsequent conversion to Islam unleashed a constitutional maelstrom. As a consequence, Vince Cable’s Lib-Green-Lab coalition went into the 2014 election on a joint platform of renationalising the denationalised banks and democratising the monarchy. Cable won with a huge majority, and when the Democratic Succession Act 2015 passed through parliament with ease, most of the Windsors sloped off into polo-playing obscurity.

There was some protest, but largely the country took the end of constitutional hereditary monarchy quietly. Scotland was an independent republic anyway, and although Ulster threatened, as it often does, to say “No!” and leave the remaining rump of the Union, there was never any serious prospect of the then 89-year-old Queen Mother exchanging Balmoral for Belfast. Instead, Elizabeth accepted a deal that left her in possession of several palaces – though not Buckingham Palace – and still one of the richest women in the world, knowing that to fight the will of parliament would be to encourage other, wilder, suggestions. Among the wildest were plans for Regicide, a live, pay-on-demand reality TV show, abandoned after an outraged campaign by the Daily Mail.

But live TV did win in the end: the hustings of the initial eight candidates for monarch attracted huge audiences for the BBC (though not as big, perhaps, as Regicide would have pulled in). The debates proved impassioned, and at times chaotic. George Galloway’s flamboyant candidacy, in which he promised to take the throne on behalf “of the dispossessed of the world and the countless unnamed victims of British imperialism”, attracted global attention. DJ Chris Moyles’s clownish campaign met only ridicule. Too old to catch the youth vote yet too offensive for everyone else, Moyles finished in last place in the first-round vote – a contest that set another astonishing record when 68 per cent of the electorate turned out.

The four favourites have, predictably, made it through to the last round, due to take place tomorrow after tonight’s final live debate. Now they must address the country. Charles Windsor’s Islamic dress and manner – and in particular the beard that he has grown – have made him an easy target for satirists. Yet his principled effort to recapture what he has lost has rescued much of his reputation. His address promises a mix of tradition and modernity: he will have a faith-based approach to ruling, but will be a king for all Britons.

He is followed by Joanna Lumley, who argues in the main for Buckingham Palace to be used to house asylum-seekers. Next is William Windsor, who has not spoken to his father for more than two years. Still shy, and almost completely bald, the 38-year-old ex-prince gives a halting speech that shows his dental work to good effect but carries no force apart from a reference to “strengthening the place of women in society”, when he appears to look directly at his estranged father. In so doing, he plays to his strongest card: public support for the prospect of a Queen Kate.

Then the hush comes. Charles twitches and adjusts the sleeves of his djellaba. Lumley runs a hand through her still-blonde tresses and smiles, it must be noted, regally. William simply looks resigned, knowing, as the watching millions do, that there was only ever going to be one winner. Comfortable in the knowledge that he is destined to be returned as the elected monarch of the United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and stretching his palms outwards in a gesture that is at once inclusive and dominating, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair turns his eye to the camera and speaks. He is, someone observes later, going to be a pretty straight kinda king.

2009-07-03T22:37:00.003+10:00

Australian War of Independence?

What if Henry Parkes and the other Founding Fathers had moved for full independence from the British Crown throughout the 1880s and 1890s leading to a war in 1901?

I wonder what such an Alternate History would like and how an Australian War of Independence would play out?

2009-07-02T22:50:00.004+10:00

Australian Visions

In the Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine Aurealis, 20/21, April 1998 a special double issue speculated on the possible futures of an Australian republic. SF is, afterall, the 'literature of ideas'. Below is an extract from Michael Pryor's 'Australian Visions’.

"The door to the cockpit was flung open and a steward stumbled out, wide-eyed and pale. "The crew's all dead," he announced to the apprehensive passengers. "We're out of control and plunging into the heart of the sun." Desperately, he looked around the cabin. "I just hope to God we've got an Australian aboard ..."

2009-07-01T20:07:00.005+10:00

The Republic of Cats

Mark Twain’s last major work, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, first appeared in 1889. Twain was no friend of monarchy, once calling it “… surely the grotesquest of all the swindles ever invented by man.” In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court Twain’s hatred of aristocratic privilege is played out through assailing the ideals associated with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It is this mockery of the British monarchy that is at the heart of the story.

The protagonist of the story, Hank Morgan is no doubt a ferocious champion of Twain’s own anti-monarchical leanings and calls for the creation of a republic through a rounded and complete governmental revolution without bloodshed.

Hank discusses this idea with his friend Clarence, who describes his idea of a republic without privileged orders but with a hereditary royal family at the head of it instead of an elective chief magistrate. When Hank urges that kings are dangerous, Clarence replies, “then have cats”.

He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house, and ‘Tom VII, or Tom XI, or Tom XIV by the Grace of God King’, would sound as well as it would when applied to the ordinary royal tomcat with tights on. “And as a rule,” said he, in his neat modern English, “the character of these cats would be considerably above the character of the average king, and this would be an immense moral advantage to the nation, for the reason that a nation always models its morals after its monarch’s. The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king, and would certainly get it. The eyes of the whole harried world would soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system, and royal butchers would presently begin to disappear; their subjects would fill the vacancies with catlings from our own royal house; we would become a factory; we should supply the thrones of the world; within forty years all Europe would be governed by cats, and we shold furnish the cats. The reign of universal peace would begin then, to end no more forever … Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow-fzt-wow!”

2009-06-30T23:55:00.006+10:00

Habits of Empire

In the Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine Aurealis, 20/21, April 1998 a special double issue speculated on the possible futures of an Australian republic. SF is, afterall, the 'literature of ideas'. Below is an extract from Sue Isle’s ‘Habits of Empire’.

"Australia had always rather admired the perceived splendour of the British Empire, so it was hardly surprising that it tool the first chance available to get one of its own …”

2009-06-29T23:02:00.004+10:00

How about a Head of State that supports Australia at sport

Prince William, despite being Australia's future monarch, has thrown his support wholly and solely behind England's 2018 World Cup bid. This is despite another of his future dominions, Australia, also bidding for hosting rights to the event. Clearly, he regards himself as English, and perhaps a little bit Welsh, but not at all Australian. See Link

Kevin Rudd was at the launch for Australia’s bid for the 2018 World Cup. So was Malcolm Turnbull. It seemed many Australians had thrown their support behind the bid.

Australia’s future king, Prince William, supported the bid – but of Australia’s main rival to host the tournament, England. Of course he is head of England’s Football Federation. How about we have a Head of State that cares enough to support Australians at sport and doesn’t barrack for our opponents.

Australia’s World Cup bid, 2018. Australian Republic ASAP!

2009-06-28T13:41:00.002+10:00

The Infinite Race

In the Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine Aurealis, 20/21, April 1998 a special double issue speculated on the possible futures of an Australian republic. SF is, afterall, the 'literature of ideas'. Below is an extract from Terry Dowling’s ‘The Infinite Race’.

"Cas Caro knew there had been another death when he saw both Republican Guard and Federal Police in the public foyer of the Parkes House Capital Hill complex …"

2009-06-24T19:26:00.008+10:00

The Republican’s begin to gather

Australia’s leading republican groups joined forces on the 2009 Queen’s Birthday weekend for a renewed push to cut the nation’s ties to the monarchy.

Divisions between the organisations over whether a president should be elected or appointed were blames for helping to defeat the republican campaign at the referendum in 1999.

A Republican Gathering of republican groups in Melbourne on 30 – 31 May 2009 decided they should unite in an active coalition to urge the Government to conduct a national plebiscite to give the Australian people a say in the future republic of Australia. The meeting was convened by Women for an Australian Republic and included the Australian Republican Movement, Real Republic Limited, the Copernican Republicans, the Foundation for Constitutional Renewal, Patriots for the Australian Republic, Republic Now!, and the Republican Party of Australia.

This is an historic first and unites previously opposed groups under the name Coalition of Australian Republicans (CAR) with a common commitment to the sovereignty of the Australian people and shows the determination of the broader republican movement to unite to give support to the Australian people’s determination to be central to any change to their Constitution.

The Coalition of Australian Republicans agreed on the following principles:

1. The Australian people must own the process leading to a republic – including the selection of the republican model to be put to the required referendum.
2. One or more non-binding plebiscites should be part of the process of moving towards the final referendum.
3. We should not wait until the death or abdication of the Queen but should determine our own timetable to discuss our own future
4. Our elected representatives, whether state or federal, should swear allegiance to Australia and her people - not the British crown.

On a broader scale Common Cause was formed in early 2005 as an Alliance of the four Commonwealth Republican Movements: the Australian Republican Movement (ARM); Citizens for a Canadian Republic (CCR); the Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand; and Republic in the UK. Sharing a Commonwealth heritage, the four republican organisations joined forces to pursue their common cause... to bring about four new Commonwealth republics across the globe. Common Cause provides a framework for the member organisations to share information, resources and ideas to bring about their common goal.

In five of the remaining Commonwealth members with Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State, republican movements are gaining ground - a recent poll by Angus Reid Strategies in Canada indicates that 53% of Canadians support ending the monarchy, while only 35% support the status quo. Citizens for a Canadian Republic leader Tom Freda added "Republican support jumps to 55% versus 31% when respondents are asked about retaining the monarchy with Prince Charles as the successor to Queen Elizabeth II".

Link Canadian comic Rick Mercer in a signature rant about the Queen

In light of growing republican sentiment in New Zealand, the race to become the newest republic within the Commonwealth is definitely on. Australia had better move or we'll find ourselves the last of the colonial monarchies.

2009-06-21T09:52:00.007+10:00

The Battle of the Major-General's
Until March 2009 the Australian Governor General was Major General (ret) Michael Jeffrey, the National President of the RSL was Major General (ret) Bill Crews, and the National Convenor of the Australian Republican Movement was Major General (ret) Mike Keating. It was interesting to watch the Canberra Major General's Club fighting amongst themselves.

See Mike Keating's Queen's Birthday interview on 'Sunrise' at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwnPri9bASw

2009-06-20T21:46:00.009+10:00

Admiralty House on republican land

One of the many strands of irony that lace through the republican debate in Australia involves Admiralty House, the official Sydney residence of the Governor-General of Australia, being built on land that was once owned by a prominent republican convict, Thomas Muir. Admiralty House is located in Kirribilli, on the northern foreshore of Sydney Harbour adjacent to Kirribilli House, which is the Sydney residence of the Prime Minister. The local aboriginal tribe, 'Cammeraygal' knew the area as a fertile fishing ground, and called it "Kiarabilli", (good fishing spot), while the tribal name was later adapted for the suburb of Cammeray.

The story of Admiralty House and of its site at Kirribilli begins in the 18th century with Thomas Muir, the Scottish constitutional reformer and one of the five celebrated “Scottish Martyrs".

Republicanism was an ongoing issue during the 1790s as the British state was suffering from both the aftermath of the American Revolution and the alarming proximity of the French Revolution. The protests and demands that had been raised in France before and during the Revolution were paralleled in England, Ireland and Scotland. The various outspoken English reform societies had their equivalent in Scotland in groups calling themselves the “Friends of the People” and in Ireland in branches of the “United Irishmen”. Leaders of all groups were drawn from middle-class professionals and artisans.

In December 1792, the first Convention of the Scottish “Friends of the People” was held in Edinburgh. The Convention protested against longstanding abuses of political power. A vigorous campaign of public speeches and distributions of pamphlets and tracts had resulted in the formation of branches of the “Friends of the People” in practically every Scottish town, although some branches were weak. There was a claimed membership of tens of thousands when delegates, joined by representatives from English societies, gathered in Edinburgh. The Convention president was Thomas Muir a twenty-seven year old lawyer and the secretary was William Skirving, a university-educated expert on agriculture. They called for equal representation of the people in parliament and a shorter duration of parliament. The Convention leaders were political reformers not revolutionaries who wanted to repair not replace the British political system. They were middle-class thinking reformers who were challenging people’s ideas, not advocating physical action. Even so, Muir and a number of his colleagues were charged with sedition. On reflecting in the 1850s on the trials of the “Scottish Martyrs”, Lord Cockburn defined sedition as,

uttering, writing or publishing material which would lead to disorder in the realm and possibly the overthrow of the government. The emphasis of allegations against each martyr would be, therefore, not only on what he had done or said, but the intention of his words and actions.

In the trials of the “Scottish Martyrs” the juries were selected to ensure conviction. In Britain, the middle-class supporters of reform societies renounced violence and launched a petitioning campaign to support their proposals for reform in the British parliament.

The first of the “Scottish Martyr” trials occurred at the moment when the British government felt besieged from all sides by republican action. This charge of sedition was certainly a reaction to the events in France. The “Reign of Terror” was at its height in revolutionary France. When Muir stood trial in 1793, the French King had just been executed, Thomas Paine had just released his revolutionary republican tract in America, The Rights of Man (1792), and Britain had declared war on republican France. The British government could not allow republican dissent, real or perceived, to occur on their own island without swift and firm action. In his defence Muir stated,

Constitutions of government are the work of men; that constitution is the most perfect which can be easily amended … There are constitutions, which, step by step, without convulsion and without blood, have advanced to superior degrees of perfection; which by their own internal energy, have effected their own reformation, and avoided the calamities of a revolution … How grateful we should be … that our constitution possesses in itself the power of amendment, that without a revolution it can rectify its abuses; and that, silently and without disorder, it can advance towards the chastened liberty, which constitutes human felicity.

Muir’s claim that there was no fixed British constitution was to be the basis of constitutional republican thinking in nineteenth-century colonial Australia. The British parliamentarian Charles Fox had been talking of the idea of a “disguised republic” since the end of the eighteenth century. The opinion of the Scottish judges was that it was not possible for the British constitution to evolve as it was fixed and the best in the world. Thus, constitutional reform was not possible.

Parliamentary representation in the late eighteenth century was based on landed interest. It was considered only those people who owned land had a stake, or interest in the country. Those who did not possess land were considered transient and therefore did not have a right to participate in the decision-making of the country. Although Muir had stated the objectives of the “Friends of the People” had been simply parliamentary reform he was sentenced to seven years and transportation to New South Wales. The example of the “Scottish Martyrs” was paralleled in the colonies with the labelling of those colonists who desired parliamentary reform as republicans.

The “Scottish Martyrs” were linked to republicanism through their sympathies with the French system, their imitations of French forms in the Conventions, and Gerrald’s avowed admiration of the American republic. However, they all denied in court they were republicans. They did not want to overthrow the monarchy but rather they wanted to reform a corrupt system that did not represent the people. Even so, they were transported under a charge of sedition as incipient republicans.

Before 1795, there had been little reason for concern about republican activity in New South Wales, however, with the arrival of HMS Surprize in 1795 a change occurred within the political tenor of the colony. Onboard the HMS Surprize were the “Scottish Martyrs”, middle-class Scottish and English dissenters with a reform agenda. The “Scottish Martyrs” had an influence over a number of the young men Governor Hunter had brought to the colony as his assistants. Also onboard HMS Surprize was John Boston, who had been accused during the voyage of toasting, “damnation to the King, his family, and all crowned heads”, and who had described himself as “an avowed Jacobin”. Boston was to continue his outspoken Jacobinism in the colony.

The five “Scottish Martyrs” were officially perceived as Jacobins, another word for republicans. Jacobins was a term used for those sympathetic to the French revolution and who agitated for reform. Fifty years later the fear of Jacobin republicanism pervaded the New South Wales colony. In 1842, the Sydney Morning Herald challenged the colonists of New South Wales to choose between, “the rights of the constitution or the rights of man? Monarchy, or republicanism? The doctrines of Magna Carta, or the doctrines of Tom Paine?” The Sydney Morning Herald was pleased to announce that the majority of the colonists were not radical republicans, “and that while you prize beyond life your own rights as British commoners, you pay cheerful homage to the throne of your Sovereign.” The article continued with a definition of “Loyalists and Jacobins”. British loyalists asserted, “the graduated rights of Kings, Lords, and Commons … [and were] firmly attached to the British constitution as a limited monarchy.” Jacobins were described as,

Levellers … whose undisguised principles strike at the very root of monarchical government … a compound of English and Scotch radicals and Irish repealers – democrats of the deepest dye – chartists, agrarians, anarchists, mobcrats.

Certainly they were referring to the “Scottish Martyrs” in this list. Yet the “Scottish Martyrs” were all well-educated and highly respected men.

When Thomas Muir was sentenced to transportation for sedition as a political prisoner he was treated as an exile rather than a convict. In 1794 he was granted a farm “across the water” from his cottage on Sydney Cove beside the Tank Stream. This farm he named “Hunter’s Hill” after his father’s home in Scotland; it included all of Kirribilli. However, as there was little restriction placed on his movements he escaped with ease from the colony in 1796 aboard an American brig, never to return.

In 1800 the property was granted to a Robert Ryan for services in the Marines and in the New South Wales Corps. A year later it passed into the hands of merchant Robert Campbell who built Australia's first shipbuilding yards in 1807, where the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron is located. The property was used for grazing by Campbell's friend James Milson, after whom 'Milson's Point', the next point west from Kirribilli is named. In 1842, five acre of the site was leased to Gibbes to build a home on the site.

The original house was a private dwelling, built in 1843, by Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes, Collector of Customs for New South Wales and a portrait of him from 1808, hangs in the house. It later served as the residence for the Commander in Chief of the Royal Navy's Australian Squadron from which the name Admiralty House was introduced. Between 1842 and 1843, a single-storey house with wide verandahs which Gibbes designed and named "Wotonga" was constructed. Local stone and timber was used and Gibbes engaged James Hume, a well known builder to supervise the construction of the building and stables. Completed, the house featured a double facade to maximise the building's magnificent, sweeping views across Sydney Harbour and monitor shipping traffic in and out of Darling Harbour and Circular Quay, where the Customs House was. Robert Campbell died in 1849 and the executors sold the house and five acres of land, to Gibbes for about £400. On 27 December 1851, Gibbes sold the property to James Travers, a merchant of Macquarie Place, for £1,533. In 1854 a little over an acre of the land was sold to Adolph Feez and Kirribilli House was built next door. This now serves as the official Sydney residence of the Australian Prime Minister.

Admiralty House may be a monarchical structure but it is built on once republican land. Although Thomas Muir absconded from his political prison it would be interesting to consider whether the transfer of ownership of the land was valid.

2009-06-18T23:50:00.005+10:00

Australia’s republican sail

Joern Utzon, the Danish architect of the Sydney Opera House was asked in 1998 to comment on the idea of the world-heritage nomination of the Sydney Opera House.

“Please listen to me, Canberra. They should accept that an Australian building will be cared for, representing a time which is at the end of colony Australia and the beginning of republic Australia. The spirit of the building is independent of anything from anywhere. It could be the best example of what you’re going to do, because you’re to do that, to be a republic – with all respect for the royals! So I think these ideas fit beautifully together. Then you can hear beautiful music all the time in the future from a clean beautifully kept building.”

Utzon’s masterwork, one of the greatest buildings of the twentieth century, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973. However, in the eyes of its creator, it was the very essence of the spirit of republican Australia, resounding with the spirit of place, and of the very country in which we live.

In November 2008, Utzon died in Copenhagen at the age of 90. During the NSW State Memorial Service in March 2009, John Bell, of The Bell Shakespeare Company, read a tribute to Utzon called An Angel at Bennelong Point written for the occasion by David Malouf.

If, as humans, we had to name our supreme achievement in the realm of making, it would surely be that piecemeal work of hands and generations, the city.

Extraordinary, then, how often in such a collaborative enterprise, such a random collision of expediency and provisional hit-and-miss, of utilitarian dullness and commercialism and occasional caprice, a single building, the product of one man's vision, has made all the difference, providing a city almost overnight with what it lacked, a defining centre, or adding to an existing landmark a late-born twin and rival to create a new line of force.

Think of the Taj Mahal or the Golden Gate Bridge. Think of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower.

If such a building catches the world's eye and finds a place there it becomes an icon, or what Wallace Stevens, speaking of poetry, called a "necessary angel": a presence that speaks powerfully to the senses but whose real message is for the spirit.

Set such a building down in the muddle of a great city and the whole field composes itself anew. The city is drawn in around it, as if it had been waiting for just this miraculous object to appear and claim its place.

That, of course, is how it was when this building, Joern Utzon's Opera House, first arrived at Bennelong Point.

And those of us who lived through the 15 years of its construction - the piling up over weeks and months in all weather of so many tonnes of structural material, the assembling of so many hands, the precise calculations and engineering and technical know-how, the bringing in of excavators, derricks, cranes, lifts, girders to a site that swarmed like the pyramids, all mess and mud piles and unfinished arcs and unseemly arguments - will recall, when all the heavy work was done and those millions of tonnes had found their proper place and tension, and the finished object was cleaned down and unwrapped, what a work of playful lightness it turned out to be, a shining thing from another order of reality that had miraculously stepped clear of the mind that had conceived it, shouldered off its crust, and was actually there, spreading its wings on a new shore

But a city is a living organism, an enterprise not simply of towerblocks and thoroughfares and squares, but of daily comings and goings, of human needs to be catered for and interests served. Those too are transformed by whatever new thing is set in their midst.

When Utzon's necessary angel alighted at Bennelong Point, the whole inner city shifted its ground. Circular Quay, The Rocks, Woolloomooloo and Walsh Bay took on a new existence. Macquarie Street found a goal, became what it was always meant to be, a grand boulevard running from Hyde Park to the water. And the lightness, the exuberant fantasy the building embodies and so powerfully spoke up for, provided a new vision of what a water city - and specifically this city, all light and vertical space and air - might aspire to be: a playground of the spirit, a model of how the useful and necessary may also, within the rules, become pure play.

Like all true works of art, Utzon's great house and explosive sculptural ensemble was a gift. Our role as the receivers of it is to honour the gift with our affectionate gratitude, and be taking it into our lives and using it as it was designed to be used, and passing it on.

The sun had just slipped over the horizon to kiss the Opera House sails when the people of Sydney gave thanks to Joern Utzon, who had given them the sail. A sail created to catch the republican wind.

2009-06-16T12:24:00.005+10:00

Republican of the Year

Located at the foreshores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra is the Australian of the Year Walk. The Australian of the Year honours those Australians who have been recognised for outstanding contribution to our community through the Australian of the Year Awards. It recognises all Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia's Local Hero award recipients since the inception of the Awards in 1960.

The Australian of the Year Walk comprises a series of plinths, seating and lighting along the shores of the lake by Commonwealth Bridge. Incorporated into the Australian of the Year Walk design are five metal strips set flush into the ground, forming the five stave lines to a music score, along with bollards to represent the notes of Advance Australia Fair. Each bollard is topped with a plaque representing a year in history and that year's Australians of the Year. The walk was opened on the 25th of January 2006.

Historian and author Mark McKenna describes the walk in 'The Nation Reviewed' - The Monthly, March 2008, No 32.

"On the southern shore of Lake Burley Griffin, along the promenade directly in front of the National Library, a series of stone plaques, erected in 2006, commemorates every Australian of the Year since the award's inception in 1960. Manning Clark and Alan Bond are there, as are Patrick White, John Farnham and Paul Hogan. Taken together, this odd precession of sporting champions, writers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, military heroes and adventurers offers some kind of insight into the sort of people we have become and the forms of human achievement we admire.

The plaques stretch from the southern side of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, almost to the front of the National Portrait Gallery. Standing in front of the first, dedicated to Sir Frank McFarlane Burnet, and looking east along the lakefront, the remaining plaques take on a stark funereal quality, appearing like the tombstones of fallen soldiers. They are also a stunning example of the art of memorialisation. While each plaque memoralises an individual, en masse these individual identities are subsumed by a much greater presence: national pride. In some ways they remind me of Italian cemeteries, where the names of the Catholic dead are accompanied by photographs of the deceased - passport style headshots blanched pale and almost indistinguishable by the sun - forming a sea of faded faces staring back from times past, somehow making our attempt to make the significance of each human life all the more futile and all the more poignant.

When I first saw the plaques, last December, I counted at least another 40 standing beyond the one that bears the name and photograph of the 2007 Australian of the Year, Professor Tim Flannery. These blank plaques - memorials to the future - stand as if waiting for the years to pass before they can be filled in and become whole. Yet strangely they seem more intriguing than the plaques that precede them. It is possible to imagine the line of blank plaques stretching one endlessly, and their emptiness begs the question: What sort of nation will Australia become over the next few decades?"

The question is which of these blank plaques will inscribe Australia's first ‘Republican of the Year’.

2009-06-13T07:54:00.004+10:00

Book Review: G Barns & A Krawec-Wheaton (2006), An Australian Republic

Almost ten years ago, 55 per cent of Australians rejected the opportunity to rid Australia of the British monarchy and allow our national Parliament to select an Australian head of state. In Greg Barns and Anna Krawec-Wheatons book An Australian Republic they state they believe republican fortunes could change rapidly. They examine how the opportunity can be grasped, how the conditions necessary for achieving consensus can be constructed and how the political will to tackle the complex issues of constitutional change can be generated.

Both have excellent credentials in this field: Greg Barns was national chairman of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) from 2000 to 2002 and national campaign director for the 1999 referendum campaign YES case, while Krawec-Wheaton is a recent PhD graduate with a thesis focusing on Australia's republican movement.

In March 2006, John Howard acknowledged there was no guarantees about the English monarchy's future in Australia after Queen Elizabeth II dies or abdicates. In An Australian Republic Barns and Krawec-Wheaton argue that in 2006 the Australian public was broadly republican in sentiment and that forces within both major political parties were sympathetic. For Australia to move to a republic they argue there needs to be widespread receptiveness and enthusiasm for the issue: in other words a preparedness and readiness for change by the public. Polls conducted continue to show that Australians are ready for a republic.

But for an Australian republic to be delivered, more is required. Those underlying sentiments need to be given voice. They need to be captured by a social-movement organisation, as was the case in the 1990s with the establishment of the ARM. However, the central factor needed for the republican cause is agreement between the decision makers. There needs to be agreement upon what form a republic will take. As Barns and Krawec-Wheaton point out, the real problem is disunity inside the republican camp. This book is a blueprint towards building a consensus among the major players and advancing the republican cause in twenty-first century Australia. Rather than focus on the variety of possible models that a future republic might take, this book examines how the opportunity might be grasped.

The challenge ahead is how do we get to an Australian republic? Barns and Krawec-Wheaton have made some ground in showing us the way. The first step is unity between republican protagonists and compromise on an agreed model.

2009-06-11T21:56:00.006+10:00

Can’t afford a carriage …

The British Royal family is universally acknowledged as being amongst the world’s richest people. Yet the Australian Government paid $1.8 million for the 2006 Royal visit for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and $250,000 for a royal coach glorifying Britain, but not Australia.

The royal coach has been described as a stunningly wrought piece of propaganda. Stories of conquest and the divine right of kings are etched on its panels in the powerful language of heraldry. Apparently it contains more gold than any carriage built since 1762 and the doorhandles are made of New Zealand gold encrusted with sapphires and diamonds. The leopards that decorated the standard of Richard the Lionheart occupy one compartment, others house the flowers of Britain: England’s Tudor Rose, the Irish Shamrock, the Welsh Leek and the Scottish Thistle. There is no Wattle present, though, nor any reference to Australia in any part of the vehicle.

The following article from ARMLET, February 2007 exposes the true cost of subsidizing the British Royal family to the Australian taxpayer.

A blow-out in the cost of the Royal Visit led to a departmental budgetary shortfall of $1.4 million, Prime Minister and Cabinet Department Assistant Secretary, Frank Leverett, told the Senate Estimates Committee.

“Royal visits are always a high expenditure item”, said Mr Leverett.

“1.4 million was the shortfall in the program and that was the shortfall of the entire administrative funding for the Department”, he said.

The Government also paid $250,000 to a Sydney man to help him build a carriage said to be an 80th birthday gift for Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen was 80 on 3 June 2006, but the carriage was still in Sydney”.

The builder, avowed monarchist Jim Frecklington, constructed a similar coach for the Bicentennial, which the Government also funded. This time, funding was obtained after he sent a letter to the Prime Minister in March 2006. The Government refused to release this letter.

Questions were also raised about due diligence in relation to the disbursement of funds: no-one from the Government had met with Mr Frecklington, sighted the coach nor confirmed if the coach had other sponsors.

“So, if you had sent a letter saying that I was making a coach for Her Majesty the Queen, I could have scored $250,000 too. I jest, but surely there is some due diligence on this?” enquired Senator John Faulkner at the Estimates hearings.

Faulkner: “Well, what was it?”

Leverett: “There was a very detailed glossy brochure produced by Mr Frecklington”.

As at 29 May 2009 the Royal coach had been completed but is still waiting on the Queen's approval before it can leave Australia to go to London. Why on earth did the Australian taxpayer’s fund this?

2009-06-08T20:34:00.004+10:00

Not even a passing reference.

Surely Australia can come up with better reasons for a winter long-weekend than the birthday of a foreigner on a day that is not even her real birthday. Nick Pippos's reflection on his experience this year on the Queen's Birthday public holiday said it best:

We took the clan yesterday to the Redcliffe Peninsula on what was a glorious day. Children were on scooters. A group sat on pink canvas chairs in pink T-shirts under a pink tarpaulin eating cakes. Adults, who shouldn’t have, were inline skating. We all ate ice creams. At Margate beach, the markets were humming along.

The strangest thing was what I didn’t notice. No Aussie flags were flying. There was no incidental chatter about Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth; not toasts; no images.
On a magnificent sunny historical Queensland sesquicentennial long weekend, a passing reference surely was in order. Nothing.

Can we all stop kidding ourselves? Let’s keep the holiday. Let’s change the occasion. Long live the long weekend.

Courier Mail, Tuesday, 9 June 2009

2009-06-06T23:16:00.003+10:00

You're job is safe, ma'am. Your sons, however ...

In two days time it will be the Queen’s Birthday public holiday in Queensland. Most 84 years olds are long retired, but not that trouper the Queen. But the Queen displays similarly robust health to her mother and there's no sign of her standing down.

In 2006 rehearsals began for the first time after midnight in the heart of London for the Queen's funeral. As happened for her mother when she also reached about 80, a mock funeral march has been staged. They'll do it every year. In the case of the Queen Mother, they'd had lots of practice by the time she died at 101.

During the Queen’s last trip to Australia during the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Australia's then Prime Minister John Howard stated "I don't believe Australia will become a republic while the Queen is on the throne. Beyond that, I don't know". This was code that this may be her last visit.

But please let's not have any more visits from Prince Charles. His 2005 visit was lacking in crowd-pulling power and plain dull.

The common view is when the Queen dies or steps down and Prince Charles ascends the throne there will be a trigger for another push within Australia for a republic. This will change things because there is a reservoir of goodwill for the Queen which there isn't for Prince Charles. However, it would be much better and more dignified to see the debate happen well before such an event.

2009-06-05T22:03:00.003+10:00

A Fond Farewell to dear Liz

In his first 2008 Boyer Lecture, Rupert Murdoch urged Australians to declare their independence from Britain. "The establishment of a republic of Australia will not slight the Queen, nor will it deny the British traditions, values and structures that have served us so well" he said. As usual, Murdoch got straight to the heart of the matter. He is right when he says it would be a mistake to rush into a republic without acknowledging the role Britain played in defining our national character. Whether we like it or not, Britain made us what we are today. And I suspect there can be no harmonious transition to a republic without acknowledging the civilising effect of the monarchy on our history.

However, don't imagine Her Majesty will take offence at Australian's cutting the apron-string. She won't. In 1999 the rejection of the republic referendum was more an expression of popular mistrust of politicians than an indication of royalist sentiment. When told of the result the Queen said she would continue to serve as Queen of Australia under the Constitution. But she made it clear she would not stand in the way of a republic. "I have always made it clear that the future of the monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means", she said.

The National Chair of the Australian Republican Movement, Michael Keating says it would be wrong to wait until the Queen dies before acting. "Philosophically it is wrong for us to link our national future to the health of a dear old lady living in England", Keating said. "People who say, 'I love Elizabeth but don't like Charles' are not putting their belief in any system".

It will no doubt take a couple of years to 'go through the process' of cutting ties with Britain. Perhaps Australia had better hurry up. A poll on Prince Charles's 60th birthday found 72% of Britons did not want Camilla to be Queen. Britain may be a republic before us.

2009-06-02T17:22:00.003+10:00

The winds of change!

Prince Phillip has a long history of provoking embarrassing moments and it looks like he has done it again. Did Phil do what it looks like he did? Liz does not look amused, his kids look suprised, but grandson Harry think's it's hilarious.

The 88-year-old visited Google's London headquarters last year with Queen Elizabeth II. At one point during the the tour he asked a Google worker, dressed casually in hooded top, chinos and trainers like many of his colleagues: "Just come back from jogging?" This was positively polite compared to past verbal faux pas. These include: "Still throwing spears?" - asked of an Australian Aborigine during a 2002 visit; and, perhaps most famously: "If you stay here much longer, you'll be slitty-eyed", to a group of British students during a state visit to China in 1986.

How many 88 year old men do you know who are still working? There is no doubt he is a sturdy trouper but when will old Phil be given a retirement watch from The Firm and be allowed to sleep in, watch Oprah, and potter around the garden in his pyjama's and slippers? I don't know why they still allow him out in public.

2009-05-31T21:36:00.005+10:00

Natural republicans all

When Professor Peter Doherty, National Australia Day Council's 1997 Australian of the Year, and the 1996 Nobel Prize winner commented that we are all "natural republicans" he was probably close to the truth. The Federal Treasurer Peter Costello reiterated Peter Doherty's sentiment on the republican referendum night in November 1999 when he stated: "In their hearts and minds the Australian people are republican."

In June 2006, Peter Costello restated on Southern Cross Radio that "Australia already thinks like a republic." Costello was reflecting and acknowledging the presence of republican thinking in Australia and making the assumption that Australian's do not need to be converted to republicanism as they already accept it.

2009-05-30T14:37:00.004+10:00

Charge it to Charles

The article below was published in the 2006 Spring edition of ARMLET, the quarterly publication of the Queensland branch of the Australian Republican Movement.

"The Australian Government spent $371,079 on a six day visit by HRH Prince Charles in 2005. The information, revealed in documents obtained from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet by the Australian Republican Movement (Qld) after a FOI application, show the bulk of the costs were for transport ($322,209), with a significant amount also spent on accomodation ($31,224). The Australian Republican Movement will continue to investigate the costs to the Australian taxpayer of maintaining the royal family in lavish style."

That's just over $5,000 per night for accomodation and nearly $54,000 per day for accomodation - and he didn't even come to Queensland!

2009-05-29T06:07:00.003+10:00

Educating for a republic

Whether Australia moves to a republic or not, any effort to encourage a significant improvement in knowledge of the Australian Constitution by Australians is warranted. A new and impartial Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Constitutional Education and Awareness would be a great start.

The 2004 Senate Inqui ry into an Australian Republic examined the issue of Australia's constitutional awareness and education, and found that there was "a general lack of understanding in the Australian community of the Australian Constitution and system of government".

These concerns have been further reinforced by the Australian Electoral Commission sponsored Youth Electoral Study that sought to establish why so many young people were disengaged from the political system. The researchers found only 82% of young Australians 17-25 years of age were enrolled to vote at the time of the 2004 federal election, compared to 95% of older Australians. They also found that only half of the young people they interviewed would vote if it was not compulsory, and among the reasons given by the respondents for not voting was lack of knowledge. Only half felt that they knew enough about the political issues, the voting system and the political parties to vote. These results are a little surprising given the improved civics education introduced into Australian schools over the last decade through the Discovering Democracy program. In the 1990s the Constitutional Centenary Foundation (CCF) did a fine job preparing and disseminating materials to schools and community groups regarding the operation of Australia's constitutional system. The CCF provided impartial materials prior to the 1999 republican referendum and coordinated Constitutional Convention programs through schools and local councils. Unfortunately, funding for the CCF ran out with Australia's Centenary of Federation in 2001.

The Constitutional Education Fund Australia (CEF-A) was set up in 2003 as a bipartisan organisation to educate the public on the role of the Australian Constitution. According to its website, CEF-A "has been established to help all Australians gain a better understanding of the Australian Constitution and the Constitution of the States of Australia". The Governor-General is the Patron-in-Chief of CEF-A, which financially supports an annual Governor-General's prize for undergraduate students.

In June 2003 the Australian Government granted rare gift recipient tax deductibility status to CEF-A. From the beginning CEF-A shared its Executive Director, Kerry Jones, with Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM), and was run from the ACM's Sydney office. The ACM regularly appealed to its members to contribute to CEF-A. Despite the inclusion of several republican academics on its advisory board, the Australian Republican Movement and its members were never approached to be involved in CEF-A programs or activities.

On 13 February 2006, Lindsay Tanner, the MP for Melbourne, stated in Federal Parliament that leading monarchist Kerry Jones was contracted through her company to run the affairs of both organisations, and claimed this was a clear indication of a conflict. He continued to paint a picture of collusion between CEF-A and ACM. "Only one conclusion can be drawn from these facts: the ACM is engaged ina brazen tax scam", Tanner told Federal Parliament. "CEF-A is simply an ACM front organisation which exists solely as a filter through which donations can become tax deductible. It operates from the same location as ACM, it is run by the same people and it has the same auditors. It is little more than a shell. This is nothing less than a fraud on Australian taxpayers". He said hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax had been evaded. Since it was granted tax deductibility, tax-free deductions of about $350,000 a year had gone into CEF-A's coffers. Yet over the same period, donations to ACM more than halved. In 2002-03, ACM received non-deductible donations of just over $450,000, but the next year donations fell to $200,000.

The Australian Republican Movement (ARM) responded "this sounds very serious and we can only hope that the ACM has not been filtering money into its own coffers under the pretence of 'constitutional education', while we at the ARM have been continuing the struggle to raise much needed funds through raffles and sausage sizzles, supported by the grass roots of our membership. We look forward to full disclosure on this matter".

Kerry Jones stated CEF-A was a "non-partisan promoter of civics education and denied any conflict of interest involving her own support for Australian remaining a constitutional monarchy". Ms Jones said that neither was there any conflict of interest regarding CEF-A and ACM employing her separate management consultancy. She did not dispute the financial incomings and outgoings, but said the high administration costs for CEF-A were beacuse it had to meet start-up costs. The ATO audit in June 2006 found there had been no breach of the Tax Act.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee noted in its report, The Road to a Republic, that all sides of the republican debate had stressed the importance of constitutional education and awareness and concluded that it was "the key to effective participation in any proposed constitutional reform, including reforms leading towards an Australian republic". Among its extensive recommendations, the Senate Committee proposed that a fully resourced parliamentary committee be established to facilitate and oversee ongoing education and awareness programs to imporve Australian awareness and understanding of the Constitution and our system of government. The Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Constitutional Education and Awareness would also be responsible for the preparation and dissemination to voters of independent information, rather than partisan arguments for the Yes and No cases, in the lead-up to any future republican referendum. Republicans have more at stake than most when it comes to constitutional education and awareness: most analyses suggest that the poor level of constitutional knowledge was a major factor in the 1999 republican referendum's failure. It certainly contributed to the effectiveness of the monarchist's cynical slogan, "If you don't know, vote No". However, in the area of constitutional education, it is imperative to establish and maintain bipartisan programs, both perceived and real - the Australian people will not accept anything else!

2009-05-27T23:10:00.003+10:00

Queensland teachers lead the way to the republic

On 27 September 2007, the Queensland Teachers' Union became the first organisation in Australia to become an ARM Supporter. In July 2006 QTU State Council had proposed a motion to affiliate with the Australian Republican Movement. The motion was overwhelmingly accepted by the 200-member State Council. It is this sort of grass root support that bodes well for coming republican campaigns.

The Queensland Teachers' Union, and the greater trade union movement, has a great deal to offer the republican movement. The Australian Republican Movement needs the support of trade unions and individual trade unionists if we are to achieve our goal of an Australian head of state. The QTU has a membership of approximately 35,000 and is the largest trade union in Queensland. Teachers play an important role in the civic education of our nation and it is a welcome moment as the QTU enters the republican fold.

Deep down in our hearts, we all hope one day we will not need the Queen or Charles or any other British Monarch as our Head of State any more, and we can stand on our own feet and appoint or select one of our own to the Australian Head of State. The support of Queensland's largest trade union is a tangible step towards this goal.

2009-05-25T22:37:00.003+10:00

Can I retire, please?

My grandmother will be 84 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 83 keeps on working.

Normally in robust health she had to scrap a day at the races in 2006 because of a strained muscle in her back. This happened to be the same time when Rolf Harris was to accept his CBE at Windsor Palace. Instead he received his gong for services to art and entertainment from Princess Anne. Also, the Queen had to pull out of opening the new Emirates stadium of English Premiership football club Arsenel in north London on 26 October 2006 because of her back injury. This time her then 85 year-old husband Philip deputised - can you think of any 85 year old men who are still working?

It is highly unusual for the stoical monarch to slow down on her schedule or withdraw from events. The Queen carries out hundreds of engagements a year alongside her official duties. In 2005 she carried out 378 engagements compared with 509 in 1996. Early in October 2006 she was in Belfast to review British soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland, despite suffering from a bloodshot eye.

Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952 and it was not until July 1982 that she was first admitted to hospital, to have a wisdom tooth removed. She was forced to cancel several engagements in 1993 because of flu while in 1994 she broke her wrist when her horse tripped during a ride on her Sandringham county estate in eastern England. In 2005 she cancelled three engagements because of a cold and sore throat, while in 2003 she had keyhole surgery after suffering a torn cartilage walking on rough ground. That led to a reduced schedule as she convalesced from the succesul 45-minute operation. Further surgery on her left knee later the same year was combined with a procedure to remove minor growths from her face.

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 Oprah or potter around in the garden. To make her keep working after 80 seems cruel and unsual punishment.

2009-05-24T10:15:00.000+10:00

We, the People

The colonial Queensland Premier and Chief Justice Samuel Griffith wrote in 1896 "in a republic the necessary and direct source of all authority is the people ... whereas in a constitutional monarchy authority is derived from the Sovereign".

Queensland's founding federal father correctly saw the definition of the term 'republic' concerned the location of popular sovereignty. Just over a century into the future the latest Queenslander to stride across the national stage has tapped into the essential debate on where ultimate political authority lies.

On 3 December 2007, one week after the election of the new Rudd Federal Labor government, a 'very republican moment' occurred when Kevin Rudd and his ministry swore an oath to 'the Commonwealth of Australia, its land and its people'. The significance of this moment is the new federal ministers swore an Oath under Section 62 of the Constitution to the people of Australia rather to Queen Elizabeth II, a foreign monarch.

When Kevin Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, wearing R.M. Williams boots and a grin as wide as the veranda of his suburban Queenslander in Brisbane, he declared:

"I, Kevin Michael Rudd, do swear that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people, in the office of the Prime Minister, so help me God."

Taking the office of Prime Minister (Executive Councillor) involves swearing an Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation. However, under Section 62 of the Consitution the form of the oath of office is not prescribed for a minister but by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Of course the new Oath was given to the Governor-General on Rudd's advice yet he could not have technically given that advice until he became an Executive Councillor. No doubt this advice was relayed earlier, perhaps through or with the approval of the caretaker, John Howard! In taking this Oath, Rudd acknowledged the republican ideal that ultimate political authority lays with 'the land and the people' of Australia rather than with the British monarch.

The Rudd Oath should not be confused with the Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation under Section 42 of the Constitution required to be made by a Member of Parliament or Senator before taking his or her seat. This involves swearing or affirming to "be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors according to law". This Oath was also used for ministers until the Keating Labor government removed reference to the Sovereign. However, with the election of the Howard Liberal government in 1996 the Oath to the Queen was restored but without any reference to "Her heirs and successors".

It is interesting that the federal minister's Oath has been a republican intellectual battleground over the past 15 years. It is here, with the very first act of the new Rudd federal government that, finally, the beginning of republican political authority is being laid down.

The real issue behind the question of the Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation concerns where political authority ultimately resides. Does it originate from the divine, from God or from 'the land and the people'? Should Australian political authority continue to be derived from the British monarch and ultimately God, or should it be ackowledged that popular sovereignty resides in 'the land and the people' of Australia? This is a fundamental question for the republican debate.

The historical position of the Divine Right of Kings was that the power of the monarch was derived from God. Indeed, Romans XIII states, "There is no authority except God which God has established". Queen Elizabeth II had to first attend a three hour Coronation ceremony to almighty God which in turn gave every citizen in her realm, immediate sovereign protection. But how does a divinely ordered constitutional monarchy fit into a modern multicultural society? In recent years there has even been discussion in Britain about changng the Coronation Oaths. This begs the question on what relevance do Coronation Oaths have to Australia when they can themselves be changed? But even though the current British monarch swears a Coronation Oath and is annointed in the same way as were the Kings of the Old Testament, the Coronation Oath is essentially a human construct. It has a historical basis rather than a biblical basis. The Bible is not really interested in the system of government under which God's people live, it is more interested in the compassionate nature and morality of government. The Old and New Testament show God's people living under a variety of different systems of governments from the theocracy of Moses to the Roman rule of the New Testament. But even if ultimate authority does come from God, it doesn't necessarily flow through the forms and symbols of the State. The evangelical Christian tradition says authority flows through God's direct relationships to individuals. Now we have Kevin Rudd, christian and republican, asking for God's help, not authority, to serve as Prime Minister of Australia.

Republicanism does not acknowledge God as the ultimate source of authority in our society rather it is 'the land and the people'. In 1887, Henry Lawson wrote in his 'Song of the Republic':

Sons of the South, make choice between

the land of the morn and the land of the e'en,

the old dead tree and the young tree green,

the land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,

and the land that belongs to you.

It was during the 1963 Royal Tour that Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who was 'British to his bootstraps', said of the young Queen Elizabeth II, "I did but see her passing by, and yet I'll love her till I die". The tide appears to be turning towards a republican future, a future grounded more in a love of country, perhaps even in Dorothea Mackellar's My Country where she wrote "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains".

One of the essential definitions of a republic is a state based upon popular sovereignty, in which all public offices are held by persons deriving their authority from the people, either through election by the people or appointment by officers themselves elected by the people. The exclusion of the reference to the Queen in the federal ministerial Oath is a tangible step towards repositioning political authority for a republican Australia. Symbols are important and the words in this Oath reflect more meaningfully the reality that our Ministers serve the people of Australia and not a foreign monarch.

The 'currency lads' of the mid-nineteenth century would often use the toast 'To the land, boys'. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appears to have taken Henry Lawson's advice and chosen "the land that belongs to you" over "the land that belongs to the lord and Queen".

2009-05-22T21:42:00.000+10:00

Advance Australia (always)

The debate about whether "Advance Australia Fair" or "God Save the Queen" would be played at the Opening Ceremony of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games hit a raw nerve with everyday Australians during February and March 2006.

M2006 organisers indicated there was no obligation to play the British national anthem at the Opening Ceremony. If the Queen is the Queen of Australia what problem could she have with the Australian national anthem. To play anything other than "Advance Australia Fair" would be a direct challenge to Australia's national identity.

As the debate advanced, political leaders and the Australian's for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM) began talking about a compromise position whereby both anthems could be played. If there's one thing you never compromise it's your identity.

Our national anthem should be the only anthem played during any formal proceedings.Some monarchists, such as the ACM were embarassed with the prospect of only Australia's national anthem being played and warned Australians that the rest of the world would think Australian's were disrespectful and rude if the British anthem were not also played. They were proven wrong. In typical Australian style, the organisers stood strong on the issue of the anthem and played only "Advance Australia Fair", while also following through on their plan to play some bars of "God Save the Queen" while singing the Queen "Happy Birthday". It was a clever and uniquely Australian celebration about which all Australian's can be proud.

2009-05-21T06:32:00.000+10:00

Empire Day or Federation Day?

Well, two weeks to go until the second Monday in June again when we'll have a public holiday for the Queen's birthday in Queensland. It has always seemed absurd that Australians acknowledge the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II at a completely different time to her actual birthday. Of course her real birthday was on 21 April 2009 when she turned 83.

The idea of celebrating the sovereign’s birthday was introduced in 1905. After Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 there was a call to remember her long reign. The result was the creation of Empire Day. On 24 May each year, Victoria’s birthday, an annual commemoration was held which was directed especially at school children to promote loyalty among the dominion countries of the British Empire. This day was celebrated by lighting fire-works in back-gardens and attending community bonfires. In 1958, Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth Day. However this is no longer celebrated within the Australian community. Instead Queensland has gazetted the official Queen’s birthday to be on the second Monday in June.

Perhaps celebrating the birthday of one of the fathers of federation, Henry Parkes, may be more relevant to Australians than either Queen’s Victoria or Elizabeth. Coincidentally Parkes was born on 27 May 1815, almost 3 years earlier to the day than Queen Victoria. Federation Day sounds better than Empire Day, and it could still be held each year on the second Monday in June!

2009-05-18T22:00:00.000+10:00

A Vision Splendid

In December 2007 Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital axed its reference to the Queen. The landmark hospital in Parkville changed its signs to 'The Women's' after advice from consultants that its traditional name was ineffective. One of Victoria's leading maternity hospitals, the hospital was opened in 1856 and was known as 'The Women's Hospital' from 1884 until Queen Elizabeth II conferred a Royal Charter upon it in 1954. From the beginning of 2008 the hospital reverted to 'The Women's' but will continue to be registered as The Royal Women's Hospital. This is due to the issue that any Royal Institution or Royal Society would cease to exist as a legal entity if their Royal Charter was revoked or dissolved.

As there is no precedent in living memory for the Queen revoking a Royal Charter then the only way a Royal Charter can be dropped is for it to be dissolved by an Act of Parliament. The handing back of Royal Charters is a sign the Australian republican spirit is bubbling up to the surface into the active consciousness of Australian society. On 6 July 2004, the Federal Court approved the merger of the Royal Blind Society of NSW, the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind Ltd, and Vision Australia Foundation into a combined agency known as Vision Australia Ltd. Legislation was passed in NSW and Victoria to ensure the assets and liabilities of the three separate organisations were transferred, where possible, to the new entity.

Indeed, it was necessary to pass legislation to also ensure that bequests and gifts created or granted, in the past and future, after the agencies were wound up or de-registered would be transferred to the new agency, Vision Australia. However the name 'Royal' was not adopted by the new merged agency.Vision Australia is leading Australians into a republican future. On 5 December 2006, members of the Royal Blind Foundation Queensland voted in favour of amalgamating with Vision Australia. In February 2008 it was announced that the Seeing Eye Dogs Australia would also merge with Vision Australia by the end of June 2008. The delivery of an effective service to Australians appears to be of more importance to vision-impaired Australians rather than founding their new agency within an outdated concept of a Royal Charter.

For vision-impiared Australians the spectacle of royalty, with all its pomp and ceremony, appears to have no relevance. What is more important is Australians helping Australians. There is no longer a need for royal permission or patronage to deliver a needed service to the people of Australia.

The clear republican vision of Vision Australia shows the way for other Royal Societies and Royal Institutions - it's time to return the Royal Charters to the various State Parliaments and stand tall.

2009-05-16T21:07:00.000+10:00

Royalty can't beer it

Coopers Brewery was forced to drop a billboard ad in 2008 urging beer lovers to 'Forget the monarchy, support the publicans' beside an image of a frothy schooner of beer after it angered supporters of the Queen.

The billboard was believed to have been part of a national advertising campaign, but it was unknown how many of them were in use around Australia. Although the advertisement had received prior approval from the Advertising Standards Board, the cheerless teacup warriors from the Australian Monarchist Legaue still wrote to the brewery with their concerns and the advertisement was withdrawn.

"Initially on seeing it I thought that it might be humorous, but then I recognised that as people drive into the car park all they're going to see is 'forget the monarchy' ", Australian Monarchist League national chairman Phillip Benwell told AAP. Benwell argued it was a political statement and felt that using the phrase crossed a boundary. Why not say 'Forget the republicans', he bleated.

A Coopers representative responded to the League, "It was not our intention to attack the monarchy nor in any way was it a political statement. It was an advertisement designed to demonstrate that we are not buying into the debate but instead supporting the people and businesses (publicans) that are important to us."

It was interesting that Cooper's and its advertising agency seemed genuinely surprised that anyone would take offence at the billboard ad. Most Australians like a bit of humour and larrikinism in their politics. It is the cheerless monarchists who are out of step with contemporary Australia.

Benwell and his cheerless cohort really do appear to be doing a King Canute and futilely commanding the republican tide not to come in. "Some people might think we are being a bit precious, but if we don't take a stand these things will continue", Benwell said. The absurdity of their demand to have a beer billboard removed can be heard in their shrill voices screeching "We are on the watch for these type of things". King Canute couldn't control nature and nor can Benwell dampen the roar from the coming republican tide.

2009-05-15T23:52:00.000+10:00

Wattle Day - our land's birthday

Wattle Day is celebrated annually on the first day of spring, 1st September. It is a time when the smells of spring are in the air and the vivid gold of the blossom is literally arresting. A sprig of Australia's national floral emblem, the golden wattle, Acacia pycnantha is traditionally worn on this day. 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 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.

The first known use of wattle as a meaningful emblem in the Australian colonies was in Hobart Town in 1838 when a resident suggested wearing a sprig of wattle to celebrate the jubilee of the landing as Sydney Cove. There was in this seemingly small gesture, a suggestion of an independent Australia. At a regatta in 1842 to mark the anniversary of Tasman's discovery of Van Dieman's land, many of the celebrant's again wore a sprig of wattle.

The Golden Wattle was the first symbol of the Adelaide Australian Natives' Association's 'Wattle Blossom League'. On Foundation Day, 26 January 1891, the Adelaide ANA represented itself with a Wattle Blossom Banner embroidered with Golden Wattle by its ladies' branch.But it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that an official Wattle Day was proclaimed after a suggestion made by the naturalist Archibald Campbell in Sydney. Campbell's suggestion led to a meeting to form a Wattle Day League which coordinated the states into celebrating the first 'Wattle Day' on 1 September 1910. The Wattle Day League was a patriotic society in the vein of the Australian Natives' Association. The day was a celebration of the unique land, people and institutions of Australia, and was marked in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney with activities including the planting of wattle trees in the school grounds, decorating public sites with wattle and wearing wattle. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

To the native born Australian the wattle stands for home, country, kindred, sunshine and love - every instinct that the heart deeply enshrines.

The celebration of the day continued until the beginning of the first world war.

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. Because there is no better symbol of our land than wattle, 'National Wattle Day' each year could be the day Australians recommit to the care of the land. Perhaps 'National Wattle Day' could become our land's birthday. This is the time each year when the landscape waves its golden flag, and in response, many Australians resolve to both respect and care for the land. Perhaps 'National Wattle Day' could be a good replacement for Queen's Birthday holiday.

None of our existing key public holidays are about us Australians as a contemporary people and the land they love. Significant as it is in Australian history, Australia Day is essentially a marker of an event in eighteenth century British colonial history. Anzac Day, as sacred as it is in Australia's national psyche, was inspired initially by the valour and deeds of young Australians in a far away land, out of loyalty to a distant empire. On the other hand, '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 its bonds Australians as a people to the land. It is a far more meaningful day of celebation than the Queen's Birthday which relates to a monarch in a foreign land, whose real birthday is at another time and which is marked at differing times around Australia.

Because of its association with the land and the care that indigenous, settler and modern day Australians have for it, 'National Wattle Day' can be seen as an occasion to celebrate and honour the shared earth. Respecting and caring for land, protecting its native flora and fauna, and using wisely its water resources are major challenges to commit to as a people. Australia's future is bound tightly with the health of Australia's environment and land.

One of the great failings of the republican movement of the 1990s was it did not project a sense of feeling of place. Instead, it pinned all emotional connections to Australia one one idea - an Australian President. This was a republic embodied, literally, in one person. Australians now need to embody the spirit of the future republic not in the person of the President, but in place. Wattle captures something crucial to the success of the republic - feeling for country.

As a living expression of land, wattle links us to the earliest occupation of the Australian continent. Indigenous Australians used wattle for thousands of years as a season marker (a sign that the whales were coming), as a source of food, and the raw material of hunting and sound instruments. This is part of wattle's wonderful heritage as a unifying symbol of land, people and the nation - a symbol that has no unpleasant baggage.

Wattle is a broad and inclusive symbol. It 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. 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 nations best who are honoured with Order of Australia awards with insignia designed around the wattle flower.

The wattle flower symbolises an egalitarian, classless, free citizenry. 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 metaphor for innocence and hope, the constant promise of rebirth, that simple and powerful beauty of the wattle flower, indigneous, Australian, unsullied by the memory of war and destruction.

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. 'National Wattle Day' on 1st September each year is an appropriate time to commit ourselves afresh for caring for this land.

2009-05-13T18:41:00.001+10:00

Australia Day

One of the reasons Australians want a republic is because we feel embarassed to hear that in official functions our foreign diplomats stand to their feet and toast the Queen as our legitimate leader. Also we feel disappointed for our kids when we have to tell them they can't aspire to be the Australian head of state. We cringe when we hear the Barmy Army mockingly sing 'God Save Your Queen' at the Ashes. In essence, we are patriots. We want Australia to be completely sovereign and independent. That's why Australia Day is a special day for republicans. It's a day we like to celebrate and honour with fervour and passion.

On Australia Day 2009 dozens of Postcode Parties were held around Australia in parks and at beaches where a glass was raised to the coming republic. It is this involvement of the Australian community at a grassroots level that bodes well for future change.

2009-05-12T22:33:00.002+10:00

Empire versus the Republic

In 1977 I remember seeing for the first time Star Wars. For a thirteen year old it was the Empire versus 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. It was here the working-class community in the historic gold-mining community of Charters Towers cheered 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.

The people have come and the people have gone but the Regent structure remains – however, the old lady is utterly irrelevant to the people who have come and who have gone over the years. It is the people that mattered then and the people who matter now, never the edifice of monarchy.

2009-05-11T20:25:00.000+10:00

Royal women to have equal right to rule

In late March 2009, a Private Member’s Bill was discussed in the British Commons proposing an end to a centuries-old law that gives men priority over their older sisters in the royal line of succession. The Bill had support from all parties and consent from the Queen for the debate to take place. If these changes were applied now, Princess Anne would rise from 10th in line to the throne to fourth, leapfrogging princes Andrew and Edward and their children.

The ban on members of the royal family marrying Roman Catholics – unless they give up their claim to the throne – would also be swept away. Autumn Kelly, wife of the Queen’s grandson Peter Phillips, gave up her Catholic faith on marriage so her husband could retain his place as 11th in line to the throne.

The British Prime Minster Gordon Brown stated the 1701 Act of Settlement was an “anomaly that has no place in the 21st century”. Buckingham Palace is said to be sympathetic to the idea and ready to “open dialogue” on the issue. Brown also plans to raise the issue at the Commonwealth summit in November 2009, since the law would have to be amended in every country where the Queen was head of state.

There will be no change, however, to the requirement for the monarch to be a Protestant. Altering that would upset the position of the Church of England as the established church. The law requires that the monarch is also Supreme Governor of the church. Britain’s Roman Catholic leaders have publicly expressed their desire to see the Act reformed.

The next step after giving royal women equal right to rule is asking the question - why do royalty have priority to rule over other citizens?

2009-05-10T07:27:00.000+10:00

Australian Writer's Marketplace

The First National Republican Short Story Competition is now advertised at http://www.awmonline.com.au/ViewListing.aspx?lid=5690

2009-04-28T17:10:00.002+10:00

First National Republican Short Story Competition starts.

Friday, 1 May 2009 is the launch date for the short story competition. Check out the Terms & Conditions, and have a look at the Entry Form.

2009-04-28T17:10:00.001+10:00

Entry Form.

The Australian Republican Movement invites submissions of original short stories to be considered for the First National Republican Short Story Competition.

How to enter
Simply fill in the entry form and send together with a cheque for $11.99 and your republican speculative fiction short story to:

Australian Republican Movement
PO Box 87
Geebung QLD 4034

Entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not have won another competition.

First prize is $611.99

Personal Details

Given Name(s) / Surname

_________________________________________________________

Postal address

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

Email address

_________________________________________________________

Story title

_________________________________________________________

Please write the title of your story on each page of your submission

By submitting my entry into the competition I agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the competition. (posted at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/ )

Signature _______________________ Date _________

Entries will be accepted until close of business on 31 August 2009.

Further information contact qld@republic.org.au or go to http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

2009-04-27T17:11:00.000+10:00

Competition Terms and Conditions.

1. Entry is open to all Australian residents. Entry forms can be downloaded from http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/
2. The purpose of the short story competition is to promote non-constitutional change towards an Australian republic and to remind Australians what they still do not have.
3. Short stories will be required to portray an Australian republican future in a positive light and demonstrate the absurdity of a hereditary monarch as Australian Head of State in twenty-first century Australian society.
4. First prize is $611.99. The First Prize and Short Listed stories are eligible for publication in Republican Roundup and on the ARM website. Copyright of each short story will remain with the author.
5. Entry fee is $11.99 (incl GST). Each additional submission fee is $6.11 (incl GST) Entry fees are to be paid by money order or cheque to Australian Republican Movement. Please do not send cash.
6. Entries must be unpublished and not have won any other awards. Each manuscript entered must meet all of the following requirements:
* Length -- 2000 to 4000 words
* Typed -- double spaced on one side of the paper
* Title Page -- must include your name, address, phone number, story title, length, and email
* Do not submit originals. Manuscripts will not be returned.
* While appropriate colourful language might be accepted (within moderation), entries must not contain extreme foul language, racial or sexually explicit content that would render the entry unsuitable for publication.
* Electronic copies will be accepted at qld@republic.org.au
* Deadline -- postmarked on or before 31 August 2009 (Advice: enter early -- avoid deadline crush)
7. The competition will be judged by Nick Earls, Professor Brian Matthews, Professor John Warhurst, and Dr Glenn Davies. The judging committee will select the best short stories from the qualified entries and determine the winners. The decision of the judging committee is final.
8. The prize money will be awarded by Australian Republican Movement in accordance with the decision of the judging committee. First Prize will be publicised on 6 November 2009. Each contestant after 6 November 2009 will receive the following information: Name of the competition winner / Name and background of the judges / The 2009 competition statistics
9. Mail signed official entry form and your manuscript (s) on or before 31 August 2009 to: Australian Republican Movement (Qld), PO Box 87, Geebung Q 4034
10. If you have any questions, please feel free to email qld@republic.org.au or post a blog query at http://republicanfiction.blogspot.com/

Best of luck!

2009-04-26T14:15:00.000+10:00

Judging Panel announced.

The judging panel was announced today for the First National Republican Short Story Competition.

Nick Earls is the author of twelve books, including bestselling novels such as Zig Zag Street, Bachelor Kisses, Perfect Skin and World of Chickens. His contribution to writing in Queensland led to him being awarded the Queensland Writers Centre’s inaugural Johnno award in 2001 and a Centenary Medal in 2003.

Professor Brian Matthews is Honorary Professor of English at Flinders University. He has won the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland Premiers' awards for literature and the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. His most recent book is Manning Clark A Life.

Professor John Warhurst recently concluded fifteen years as Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. He is Adjunct Professor at both ANU and Flinders University, Senior Deputy Chair, Australian Republican Movement and was ARM Chair from 2002 to 2005.

Dr Glenn Davies is Queensland State Secretary, Australian Republican Movement, a republican historian and author, and a 2008-2009 Aurealis Awards Speculative Fiction judge.