The US Congress is being warned about the dangers of a plebiscite, where people vote on a question without having any details about the consequences of their decision.
This contrasts with referendums required before any change can be made to the Australian Constitution. There the people have all of the details presented to them before and not after they vote. How wise our Founding Fathers were.
Thomas Flynn, ACM’s young Executive Director, reports that next week the US House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2499, the proposed Puerto Rico Democracy Act, which gives the people of Puerto Rico the opportunity to vote on their political future including the possibility of becoming America’s 51st state.
This provides for a two stage plebiscite. The people will first be asked whether to maintain the status quo or to choose a different political status. If a different political status is desired by the majority of the electorate, Puerto Ricans would have three options: independence, free association with the U.S., or full statehood.
[ Warning in the Capitol ]
As Washington State Representative Doc Hastings writes on the website RS RedState (23/4), this is confusing. There are numerous questions about the implications of this bill that no one is talking about, he says. These include the number of seats in Congress, the consequences for other states’ representation, the costs involved, and the status of the Spanish language.
....if you don't know , vote NO....
“If a Congressionally-sanctioned vote is going to be held, it must come with an open, thorough understanding of what independence or statehood would mean to Puerto Rico and the existing 50 states,” he says.
“This approach of voting first and answering questions later is exactly backwards. Furthermore, it makes no sense that H.R. 2499 allows not just residents of Puerto Rico to vote, but extends voting privileges to anyone in the other 50 states who was born in Puerto Rico. Why should someone who has lived and voted for decades in Alabama or Wyoming be given special status over their neighbors to vote on whether Puerto Rico becomes a state?”
“The bottom line is that there are many questions that have not been answered, and there are a great many implications that aren’t being considered or even discussed. Congress owes it to the citizens of the 50 states and to the people of Puerto Rico to have a full, open debate and resolve these questions before voting on this bill."
" If this doesn’t happen, then Representatives should vote NO,” Congressman Hastings affirms.
As Alan Jones advised Australian listeners and viewers in 1999, "If you don't know, vote NO."
The maintenance of the Federation is crucial to the good governance of this nation. Unfortunately, it is a subject about which there is only a superficial understanding. And yet the Founding Fathers incorporated this as a core feature of our constitutional system, one which was approved by the people. Without it there would have been no Commonwealth of Australia.
[Founding Fathers : The Samuel Griffith Society]
In our recent column on Federation, “Let us hear from the defenders of federalism,” 15 April 2010 we referred to the Federation Project at Griffith University and to the fascinating results of its second Constitutional Values Survey undertaken by Newspoll.
In “Federalism is a dead idea. So what now?” ( The Australian 24/4) Mike Steketee points to the fact that the States raise only about one quarter of what they spend.
This goes against the fundamental principles of federalism as established by the American Founding Fathers from whom we took the concept for our crowned republic.
And now the Prime Minister, Mr. Rudd, has demonstrated what everyone always knew.
The GST is a Commonwealth tax - however extraordinarily generous Mr. Howard was to the ungrateful State governments.
The Queensland Labor Treasurer Andrew Fraser recognizes this and proposes the GST be replaced by a fixed proportion of income tax, over which the States can claim shared constitutional responsibility.
But unless and until the States have an exclusive growth tax, identifiable by the taxpayers clearly as a State tax, State governments cannot perform well as the Constitution intended.
As Mr Steketee says, if you are spending someone else's money, you are likely to be less careful, particularly if you can blame the commonwealth for not providing enough. Because of High Court rulings this would require a constitutional amendment.
...a convention?...
This could only be achieved through broad agreement, perhaps through a convention on the 1998 model, but sitting longer.
That model was half elected, but this time postal voting should not be used. The remainder came from the leaders of the nine Parliaments together with certain eminent persons. There were also some delegates chosen from otherwise underrepresented groups, for example, youth and indigenous.
Such a convention could only be successful if the nominated component were chosen fairly as John Howard did in 1998, not by the sort of infantile gerrymander which so marred the 2020 Summit.
There are certain things which belong to ANZAC Day - The Last Post, Reveille, the Australian National Flag and God Save The Queen, the Royal Anthem.
Once there was even a frontal attack on the relevance of the ANZAC Day itself. This has collapsed; now the attack is piecemeal with the Royal Anthem and the Australian Flag being the first in the firing line.
But both have been part and parcel of the ANZAC tradition from the beginning.
These attacks must be repelled, and the integrity of our national heritage preserved.
The campaign by media personalities Ray Martin and Peter FirzSimons broadcast on Channel 9's 60 Minutes programme on ANZAC evening was a serious miscalculation.
This alienated a good slice of those in the already minuscule support base for flag change, and more importantly, those who respect them for their achievements.
As we explain below, the evidence clearly is that when it comes to the necessarily arduous process of changing the Australian National Flag, they are not within a cooee of first base.
[ Cenotaph ...Dawn Service since 1927 ]
....integral to the Dawn Service: The Royal Anthem...
The first official ANZAC Dawn Service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927. Although the service has evolved, it has since its inception always included God Save The King or Queen, with a lone bugler playing The Last Post and Reveille.
As the eloquent Master of Ceremonies at the 2010 ANZAC Dawn Service on this video of a Channel 9 broadcast explains, God Save The King or Queen was the National Anthem from 1788 to 1984. It was during this period that most of the soldiers, sailors and air force men and women the subject of this commemoration actually served.
And in 1984, when Advance Australia Fair was made the National Anthem, God Save The Queen retained a place of particular honour as the nation's Royal Anthem.
In recent years and in some places God Save The Queen has been deleted from Dawn Services on spurious grounds including the claim that young people do not know the words.
Let us hope that not knowing the words of those magnificent hymns usually sung at the Dawn Service, such as Abide With Me or as on this video, Oh God Our Help In Ages Past, does not lead to their removal too.
The truth is the removal of the Royal Australian Hymn is an act of creeping republicanism required by those elites who refuse to accept the landslide decision of the people in 1999 to remain, as the preamble to the Constitution Act declares, a Federal Commonwealth under the Crown.
They have brought their politics into an occasion which should be above politics.
....serving under the National Flag....
On Anzac Day in 2010 veterans marched as always under the Australian Flag. The video below from the ABC broadcast shows the The Scots College Pipes and Drums marching too, proudly wearing the tartan of the Black Watch, the Royal Highland Regiment, for which they have had permission since 1931.
The Band started in 1900, when five boys joined the Cadets as Pipers. At present, there are over 200 boys learning to play or playing the bagpipes or drums. Since then, the Pipes and Drums boast a proud record of representing the College at national and international venues and marching each year on ANZAC Day in Sydney.
In the 2010 ANZAC March in Sydney, the Scots College Pipes and Drums led 300 cadets each proudly bearing an Australian Flag, and what a wonderful site that was to behold. Our Flag is not as a tiny but noisy minority maintain a colonial relic to be shredded and replaced by some unknown and unloved alien symbol.
The Australian Flag is intimately related to our past, our present and to the very future of our nation, for it represents the very pillars which made and maintain our Commonwealth of Australia.
Captain Arthur Philip did not come alone in 1788 – with the eleven ships, the convicts, the sailors and the marines he brought four priceless gifts which are with us today.
...priceless gifts...
These are not colonial relics; they are the pillars of our nation. These are our English language, the rule of law under the common law, our Judeo Christian values which are meant for all, as the Reverend Richard Johnson stressed in the first sermon, and leadership beyond politics.
This comes through our oldest institution, the Crown which before self government sought to protect the weak against the strong and later, was to become a significant check and balance on the political class both directly and through the allegiance it gives to the other institutions outside of and beyond the the control and machinations of party politics.
In a surprisingly short period of time, and before the Eureka Stockade, the British had introduced legislation to give us self government under the Westminster system, with our own Parliaments and governments.
Then came the sixth pillar, the people’s decision “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God...to join together in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown” – if you will, a crowned republic.
No one surely suggests we treat these as colonial relics - although some have tried to construct a mock Crown to replace the real one.
...the "stars and crosses" at the heart of the nation...
Immediately on Federation our predecessors adopted a Flag – the ”stars and crosses” - which symbolises these very pillars of the Commonwealth of Australia. And that is the Australian Flag which now flies so proudly over our nation.
The flag changers claim Australians did not serve under the Australian flag until recently but served only under the Union Jack. At the end of the video on the final campaign of the ANZACs from the Australian War Memorial, posted at the foot of this column, we can see soldiers firing a volley to honour the fallen. Two flags honour them, the Australian Flag and the empire flag, the Union Jack. There are many other examples.
The point surely is that our National Flag could not better symbolise our language, the rule of law under the common law, our Judeo Christian values, leadership beyond politics through the Crown, the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy and the attainment of one nation through federation.
With those pillars and under this Flag we Australians have secured two remarkable achievements.
First we have established one of the world’s oldest, most egalitarian and stable democracies.
Second we have been unequalled in the contributions we have made to the freedom and liberty of other peoples across the world and through the last century, a fact which we celebrate with pride on ANZAC day when we commemorate those who fought for and died for this Commonwealth of Australia.
...60 Minutes...
The current flag changing campaign is being spearheaded, as we have seen by the prominent media personalities, Ray Martin and Peter FitzSimons who joined forces over coffee on Sydney’s North Shore last month.
This alliance - we hesitate to call it an axis - culminated in the 60 Minutes programme on ANZAC Day.
Their argument is that because a small minority do not support the Flag it should be changed. They seem to assume that there is some alternative flag which would enjoy even more support than the present Australian National Flag. If there is such a flag, we would like to see it. We fear we will be denied that pleasure. Such a flag clearly does not exist.
Since 1998, the Flag Act has prescribed a democratic procedure under which the Australian National Flag may be changed. Parliament has surrendered its exclusive power to change the Flag. (If the House and the Senate agreed, the politicians could take back the power.)
Under the 1998 reform the present Flag ceases to be the Australian National Flag if - and only if - it and a new flag or flags, are submitted to the voters in each State and Territory. One of the new flags must then be chosen by a majority of all the electors voting.
Mr. FitzSimons must do more than wrap himself in a red bandana, a she did for 60 minutes. He, Mr. Martin and the other flag changers have to do three things.
First they must choose a new flag or flags, rather than registering their dislike of the present Flag.
Second, they must persuade the Federal Parliament to hold a vote. (The Labor Party has retreated from the Keating government commitment to early flag change. While the National Platform is committed to holding a series of plebiscites and a referendum on changing to a politicians’ republic, it is silent on the Australian National Flag. Presumably this is a matter to be delayed until such a republic is achieved. In the meantime the ALP logo is based on the Flag without the Union Jack. )
Third they must win such a vote.
During the preparation of the programme, we understand Mr. Martin with cameras in tow visited a school in a multicultural suburb of Sydney. If anyone should want change he assumed they would.
But the visit provided no useful ammunition. We understand the students overwhelmingly rejected any change whatsoever.
The flag changers are not within a cooee of first base.
Film of The Queen as a young child was released on Her Majesty's 84th birthday . This report of 21 April 2010 is from Sky TV News, UK.
The film shows The Queen - then Princess Elizabeth – when she was four. According to the BBC, this is part of an exhibition at Windsor Castle. This includes a range of photographs, one taken just four days after her father unexpectedly ascended to the throne as George VI.
Curator Lisa Heighway told the BBC the Princess' "serious expression" emerged once she became heiress to the throne. She continues to be happy and carefree, but there's most definitely a serious expression there to be see.
The series of images include the first portrait sitting of Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary in December 1926. The pictures were taken by Marcus Adams, Royal Photographer between 1926 and 1956.
[ Princess Elizabeth 1928 ? Marcus Adams, Camera Press ]
...life in transition...
In this film, Mr Adams is seen entertaining the young princess by balancing coins on his forehead and nose. The BBC says that the picture from December 1936 depicts a life in transition.
Just four days before the picture was taken, Elizabeth's father, then the Duke of York, ascended to the throne after the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII.
Ms. Heighway told the BBC that the change in Elizabeth is noticeable. "I think it is possible to see the difference," she said. "In the early photographs she's a young, carefree and happy girl - she continues to be happy and carefree, but there's most definitely a serious expression there to be seen."
The exhibition at Windsor Castle opens on 24 April and runs until 6 February 2011.
The 223rd Anniversary of the sailing of the First Fleet from Portsmouth in 1787 falls on 13 May, 2010. To mark this, the Sydney- Portsmouth Sister City Committee will hold a function at Sydney Town Hall on Frday 14 May 2010.
Hosted by Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, Councillor Phillip Black, the function will be held in the Lord Mayor's Reception Room in the Sydney Town Hall from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.
The Sydney Portsmouth is chaired by Richard Tanner, a stock broker and film maker. His films have included the multi award winning 'First Fleet Rite of Passage', which documented the trials, tribulations and eventual triumph of the First Fleet Re-Enactment in 1987/1988.
He co-authored with Jonathan King and David Iggulden a history of the First Fleet Re-Enactment, 'The Battle for the Bicentenary'.
Professor David Flint has been invited to speak. His subject is "The First Fleet: They did not come alone"
The Queen's 84th Birthday was celebrated by many including Australians for Constitutional Monarchy on Wednesday 21 April 2010. The Australia –Britain Society celebrated the day in advance on 12 April with a lunch at Parliament House addressed by Her Excellency The Governor, Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO.
In ACM’s Sydney celebration on 21 April , a lunch was held at Cello’s, one of the last grand dining rooms in the city. The lunch was addressed by Sir David Smith KCVO AO (a full report will follow)
In wishing Her Majesty Happy Birthday, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy would record their gratitude for the impeccable service her Majesty has rendered to the nation and to the Commonwealth.
A selection of photographs from the Sydney function follows, as well as a short video of the opening of Sir David's address "The Head of State Revisited". ( A separate report on this, together with a video of a special interview with Sir David on the Head of State will follow.)
...The Queen’s Birthdays...
While The Queen celebrates her actual birthday on 21 April, official birthdays are designated in the Realms and Fiji. This is on a Saturday in June in London, marked by the spectacular Trooping the Colour parade.
In New Zealand the Queen’s Birthday is celebrated on the first Monday in June. It has been celebrated in Australia since 1788, being moved from the Sovereign’s actual birthday after the death of King George V. Since 1936 it has been observed on the second Monday in June, except in Western Australia. Because it would be too close to Foundation Day, it is celebrated in September or October.
In Canada this is celebrated on 24 May, Queen Victoria’s birthday.
The Queen usually spends her actual birthday as an ordinary working day. ( Although 84, The Queen continues with her duties, for which she is not paid. The sums received in the Civil List and other sources are to cover the cost of the performance of official functions, including staff and buildings. Ironically, much of this comes from The Queen's properties held in the Crown Estate, from which the UK government makes a handsome profit.)
On this day, there are gun salutes in London at midday: a 41 gun salute in Hyde Park, a 21 gun salute in Windsor Great Park and a 62 gun salute at the Tower of London.
Now the nation's most influential broadcaster, Alan Jones has interviewed Professor Brown. 
