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

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?"...

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.