Anti-British sentiment fuels the Republican push. This latest move is sure to fail because the
majority of Australians like our Monarchy and our secure socio-political
system. However, popular opinion can be
easily swayed. An intense campaign by
fanatical Republicans, “Republists”, could result in an irrevocable change to
our lasting detriment.
Will there be a Cost-Benefit Analysis? It is not mentioned with the expensive
plebiscites and other costs, for no economic benefit and a major change that is
supposedly just cosmetic. In Canberra
and throughout Australia everything printed will be renamed and then re-printed.
For the sake of ideological purity, the self-appointed intellectual
leaders want to destroy something that gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure,
far in excess of any alleged cost or harm.
Despite this issue bheing led by the Labor Party, most Labour voters
support the Monarchy, as evidenced in the electorate call in the last
referendum. It is possibly those people
with least of their own, and with the most unfortunate or miserable lives who
derive the most pleasure from Royal News.
These are the people that the Labour Party purports to support, yet
treats them with contempt on this issue.
Republicans always answer this point by claiming that there will be
nothing to stop people reading about the British Royals, once they are reduced
to just Monarchs of England, or even totally dethroned, but this is a dishonest
response because the Queen and the Royal Family only have their celebrity
status from being what they are. There
are thousands of pretenders to thrones that very few people know or care about. You cannot, in this case, destroy your cake
and eat it. Republicans are mostly
wowsers who care more for theory than for people.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the Labor Party is
resurrecting this stale issue right when the Constitutional question before
everyone is the Recognition of Australia?s First Peoples in our Constitution,
and ancillary matters. Some of the
people who are opposed to Recognition will use the Republic to derail their
cause. Others, by contrast might see
more chance of success by coupling the two questions. There are elements within Aboriginal Politics
that oppose the Crown as the symbol of dispossession and want to see it
banished. “The Apology” came from a
Prime Minister who did not have bipartisan support, and it is little wonder
that after some decades it is now seen as a nice symbol, but with no lasting benefit. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for an
apology to come from Her Majesty, in the same way that Peace in Ireland was promoted
by a Royal Visit and a few hand-shakes, something only the Queen could have
done. One might cynically argue that
this issue is a perennial red herring to distract voters from Labor Party
wrangling and from other matters, and perhaps its use as a political digression
will ensure that it never succeeds, a roundabout way to protect our
constitution.
There are no logical reasons to become a republic, just a
passionate loathing of the medieval concept of totalitarian kingship that is
totally out of date after centuries of development, fed by an equally
passionate hatred for the British and a denial of the British origins of all
our Socio-Political institutions. There
are a few sound reasons to retain our shared, British Crown.
Of all reasons, perhaps the most important is that it is the
most egalitarian system of government, because we are all equally subjects of the
Queen. It is not a pattern for inequality,
but the single, exception. Also
important is that we retain a constitutional system that we know works instead
of changing to something simplistically expressed with unknown
consequences. Perhaps it is the prospect
of endless, profitable legal disputes that have won so many of the legal
profession to want a republic. Least
spoken of but very significant is the security consequences of change.
We are not Sinophobes by being very wary of the Communist
Government in Beijing. Without care,
Australia may end up like Tibet, where all the best jobs go to Han Chinese and
the local people are second class citizens in their own country. Anyone who wants Australia to shift its alliance
from the Anglosphere to the Chinese will want us to change, because Australia’s
security still relies on our Commonwealth connections, and they are not written
in treaties. Do we want to be fought
over like the islands in the South China Sea?
However, it would be better to bring on the question. Let us get it out of the way for the next
century. We cannot go on with the
endless sniping at our Constitution by Republicans. We need to be united. Our multi-cultural society and our vast
distances mean we need a tried and tested socio-political system that can cope
with diversity.
