by ALEXANDER VOLTZ – THE Albanese Government’s appointment of a first ever Assistant Minister for the Republic has put Australia on a path to ditch its queen, its constitution and its inherent freedoms – by stealth.
The country’s newly-elected Labor Government seems hell-bent on destroying Australia’s unique system of government – at huge taxpayer expense – on a whispered promise that republican agitators have the nation’s best interests at heart.
- It’s time for the pro-republican cause to scrap its thirty-second grabs and pseudo-moral rhetoric.
- Many of today’s youth support the Australian Constitution as it stands.
- Australians are increasingly outraged by this new Assistant Minister for “the” Republic.
Australian monarchists have been in this situation before and were forged in the fires of the constitutional debates of the 1990s. This resulted in a stunning defeat of the republican referendum in 1999.
Once more, monarchists are on the rise to see off challenges to our constitution.
GROWING
Chair of the Australian Republic Movement (ARM) Peter FitzSimons recently questioned, “How many of these monarchists even are there?!”
In fact, the Australian Monarchist League (AML) has an active support base exceeding 50,000, which is rapidly growing as a result of the Prime Minister’s actions.
Australians, it would appear, are increasingly outraged by this new Assistant Minister for “the” Republic (what republic?) and are rallying to monarchist organisations in droves.
What’s more, a third of AML members, in particular, are under the age of forty. While a large proportion of its executive team and spokespeople are in their twenties.
As numbers of young monarchists grow, it’s increasingly clear that many of today’s youth support the Australian Constitution as it stands.
A spokesman for AML, Jeremy Mann, said his organisation existed to make a difference.
“We’re an active organisation, and have been consistently so for nearly three decades,” Mr Mann said.
“For instance, in 1998, Toyota ran a commercial championing the slogan, ‘Don’t worry, Your Majesty, you’re not the only British export that’s had its day’.
“The Australian Monarchist League protested this slight against Her Majesty so successfully that Toyota’s board in Tokyo withdrew the commercial, sacked its American advertising agency and issued a formal apology to Buckingham Palace.”
Mr Mann said monarchists held a number of fundamental positions.
“The position of AML is that Queen Elizabeth is sovereign of our nation and the Governor-General of Australia is our executive Head of State,” he said.
“What we mean by that is that the Governor-General discharges our absent Sovereign’s duties, just as an executor discharges the Will of a testator, or a designated proxy votes on a shareholder’s behalf.
“During the last Vote No Republic! campaign, we held an alternate perspective, but rest assured: the Australian Monarchist League is not ideologically stagnant.
LISTEN
“Our motto, ‘Roots in our past, growing for our future’, is an authentic one and one that ensures we always research, listen, learn and adapt.”
One of the mistruths regularly argued by pro-republican agitators is the financial cost of a monarchy.
The only time we pay for the Queen’s services is when she tours Australia; and even then, her cost to the Australian taxpayer is vastly less than, for instance, a visit from the US Secretary of State.
For a free system, the nation reaps quite a reward.
The monarch is impartial, apolitical and a steadfast anchor during times of crises. Recently, we’ve seen the Crown’s neutrality triumph over the Palace Letters saga: it’s now irrefutably clear that Sir John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam without any participation from the Crown.
Mr FitzSimons, his ARM and, more alarmingly, the Albanese Government, would seemingly have us throw out our benevolent free system at a huge national expense. Some have estimated as much as $500m – plus running costs.
Perhaps those dollars would be better spent on the arts, our hospitals, or solving the energy crisis?
And while on the subject of money: In 2018, Dr Mario Guillén, then-Zandman, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found that, much to his surprise, the economies of monarchies outperformed those of republics.
The reason? Because monarchies tended to better protect property rights and reduced national political instability.
It’s time for the pro-republican cause to scrap its thirty-second grabs and pseudo-moral rhetoric.
Organisations like AML, and others, are committed to presenting Australians with facts – as complex as they can sometimes be.
As Mr FitzSimons says, “We’re Australians: robust, proud, strong, smart”.
If that’s the case, republicans should stop pretending that voters are idiots with their emotive, manipulatory arguments and start providing technical analyses of what constitutional change might actually look like.
It would be an outrageous insult to the intelligence of this nation to, during a referendum, present only a question, not also a model.PC
The Vote No Republic! campaign is on for the second time, and the Australian Monarchist League looks forward to keeping Politicom readers updated on the Albanese Government’s renewed assault against our Crown and Constitution.
AML welcomes all constitutional monarchists from all backgrounds and experiences. Join the Australian Monarchist League today, and help to protect the strong, successful system of our Commonwealth nation.
““Today, [the monarchy] symbolizes the refusal of absolute authority.” Nobody else can be the leader of any of our big institutions of state while the Crown is at the helm of all of them. As a result, the Crown is the ultimate and unassailable guarantee of our liberty and genius. Republicans are enraged by the lack of authority that the Crown denies them. They object to the Senate’s ability to obstruct supplies to a rogue government. They are irritated by the Governor-capacity General’s to remove a renegade Prime Minister.”
The monarchy checks the executive’s misuse of authority. One of the reasons Australia has been so stable since its foundation in 1901 is its constitutional check, which allows the monarch to fire the Governor-General and the Governor-General to replace the Prime Minister if these leaders misuse authority or jeopardize Australia’s interests. The sheer possibility of removal deters the Governor-General or Prime Minister from misusing their positions.
Many people in the United States think that President Bush overused his executive powers precisely because there was no check against it (in a word, he could). Some say that this enabled the Iraq War and breaches of individual rights in the name of the War on Terror. The monarchy, as a check on such abuses and ensuing instabilities, is provided under Australia’s constitution.”
Nineteen countries have abandoned the British crown on the current monarch’s (apparently fabulous) reign.
Zero have joined.
If monarchy is so fabulous, why is it all one-way traffic?
Yeah, even her home kingdom is now teetering, with Scottish independence and Irish reunion now all but inevitable.
Ms Windsor’s reign has been a catastrophe.
Pride. Dignity. Self-respect.
A foreign monarch reigning over us is an insult.
But worse are the so-called Australians who think it is all we deserve, and are too gutless to back Australia
Queen of Australia
The Australian Constitutional Monarchy shares principles with other Christian Constitutional Monarchies around the world.
The Monarch, a Queen or King, is crowned in a Christian Church service. The Monarchy is a limited Constitutional Monarchy, whose prime function is to give legitimacy to the authority of the Monarch’s Australian representatives. The limitations are defined by the Australian Constitution, and the historical precedents that accompany the office of the Crown.
Queen Elizabeth II is the current reigning Monarch. Separate to her role as Queen of Great Britain, she is also Queen of Australia. She was crowned in 1953, and the year, 2003, marked the Celebration of the Coronation Jubilee.
At her Coronation, Queen Elizabeth made a solemn oath before God, to dedicate her life, whether long or short, to the service of her people. Without any cost to the Australian people, she has fulfilled that oath for over 50 years.
The reserve powers of the Monarch are not defined, are rarely exercised, but are sufficient to guarantee that abusers of political power can be constrained by an office that is above politics, and that exists for the sole purpose of advancing the general common well-being of all the people.
Politicians represent the wishes of the majority. The Monarch serves sacrificially for the welfare of all.
The Australian Constitution has given the Australian people a Christian Constitutional Monarchy. Queen Elizabeth II is the Sovereign of Australia, but the Australian Constitution delegates all of the Monarch’s power to the Governor General, who is the practical Head of State of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Some people are working to change Australia’s political system to a Secular Republic, with a President as the Head of State. The present Australian system of Westminister style of government, through the reserve powers of the Sovereign, as exercised by the Governor General, ensures that there is no concentration of power in one person or institution, as is the case in most of the Republics around the world.
This site has been prepared by members of the community. We are concerned that Australians are being encouraged to change our Constitution without really knowing what we are changing from. We are also concerned that many do not understand the implications of such proposals as a presidential system of government without a Governor General and without a Sovereign as Queen of Australia.
The Constitution belongs to the People of Australia, not the politicians. Australia was the first country to choose its Constitution by free, uncoerced and peaceful means. It has enabled Australians, for over 100 years, to enjoy a continuous period of liberty envied the world over.
If it’s not broken why try to fix it?
Consider carefully any proposal for constitutional change, why would politicians ask us to agree to a change at a referendum and not provide complete details of changes they intend to make if they gain our essential permission and not want us to be fully informed?
Don’t fall for the misinformation, the emotional blackmail relying on people not being well informed.
It is broken.
A foreign monarch reigns over us as a birth right.
No Australian can ever hold Australia’s most senior office.
The apex of our governance is hiding in a castle on the other side of the world.
No proud nation should accept this colonial insult.
It is broken. We must fix it.
Refer to the Constitution, and read my comments above.
Thanks, I know the constitution.
It prevents an Australian from holding our most senior role.
It ensures a foreign monarch reign overs us, as a birth right.
And it stipulates that the GG is appointed by the monarch, acts for the monarch, answers to the monarch, swears allegiance to the monarch, takes instructions from the moanrch, can be over ruled by the monarch, and serves only at the pleasure of the monarch.
I know the constitution. Unlike you, I do not lie about it.
So what’s your alternative, Neil Jones? Like most republicans you choose not to offer one, yet the vast majority of Australians, if given the chance, would prefer direct election of the president in a republic. But that’s not what the current republicans want. Their preferred model is an appointed resident, hand-picked from a narrow clique of acceptable candidates. This would result in two possible outcomes, firstly the whole process would likely be hijacked by a bunch of oligarchs. Alternatively, you can imagine the acceptable candidates would be on a very short list indeed, rewarding republican political icons like Keating or Turnbull. There’s an outside possibility that the retiring chair of the ABC would become the president of Australia ex-officio. In the eyes of the republican elite, she would be regarded as a ‘safe pair of hands’, and thus open to appropriate manipulation.
Guess how the head of state is currently selected?
It is the birth right a foreign member of a foreign family, who falls out of the right vagina at the right time…..assuming the right people die first, in the right order.….based on medieval principles of racist bigotry and eugenic selection.
And you say selecting our head of state with a vote would be WORSE?
The hypocrisy of monarchists is staggering. Honestly, listen to yourself.
‘And you say selecting our head of state with a vote would be WORSE?’
And whose vote would that be? You don’t say. And that’s the point, the mug punters in the electorate won’t get a vote if a referendum can be avoided. A bit like The Voice or Recognition. The president will be ‘selected’ by a self-appointed few. On the other hand, the members of the electorate may recognise a right-royal stich-up when they see one, and vote again as they did in 1999, for the existing model. The point remains, the monarchy was legitimised in its current form by a democratic vote. You apparently seek to over-turn the democratically expressed will of the Australian people.
Then you grovelling colonial monarchists have nothing to worry about.
The foreign monarchy is safe because Australians want our sovereignty outsourced to a foreign family of English aristocrats, apparently.
They want a foreign monarch reigning over us a birthright, apparently.
That’s how dignified nations behave, apparently.
So you pathetic little second class poms should relax. Take it easy. No need to worry.