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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.