Australians for Constitutional Monarchy

The opposite is true.

[" The Motherland's Misalliance," The Bulletin's view of the Anglo Japanese Alliance,appeared on  1 March, 1902. Britannia, knocking at the door of White Australia says, " Now my good little son. I've married again. This is your new father. You must be very fond of him." Source: Mitchell State Library. Reproduced in K. Windschuttle: The White Australia Policy]

As Keith Windschuttle notes in his illuminating book, “White Australia Policy,” ( Macleay Press, Sydney, 2004), the British Colonial Secretary  Joseph Chamberlain, reminded the Premiers in 1897 of one of the British Empire’s first principles. He did this  because the Premiers had indicated they wished to restrict non-white immigration.  

Chamberlain wrote:

“We ask you to bear in mind the traditions of the Empire, which make no distinction in favour of or against race or colour and to exclude, by reason of colour, or by reason of race, all Her Majesty’s Indian subjects, or even all Asiatics, would be an act so offensive to those principles that it would be most painful, I am certain to Her Majesty, to have to sanction it.”

Chamberlain indicated that any such bill would be reserved for The Queen’s pleasure and he would advise against Royal Assent.

Queen Victoria was famously anti-racist, something she had clearly demonstrated in the governance of her household, and no doubt would have followed that advice with considerable pleasure.



...the first republican movement....




When I mentioned our first republican movement as being one which was for a white republic in a recent Quadrant article ( “ The Head of State Debate Resolved July- August 2008), my colleague   Bruce Knox  wrote  that only by straining the meaning of the word “ movement”  could the rampant nationalism of the late nineteenth century, exemplified by The Bulletin, be so described (Letters, Quadrant, September, 2008).

He also took me to task on a number of other points, thus demonstrating that freedom of speech and of opinion are alive and well among constitutional monarchists. He did however accept the principal argument in the article. This was  that the law completely supported the ACM position on the role of the Sovereign and the Governor-General under the Constitution and on the Head of State debate.

 He doubts however whether republicans will abandon their  mantra about an Australian as Head of State. 

To return to what I have described as our first republican movement,  Keith Windschuttle says that The Bulletin brand of politics was “purportedly” supported by fifteen republican organizations and at least twenty pro-republican newspapers. But he thinks  their influence was exaggerated.

He believes they were as influential as today's elites are. I agree. They were significant, but not as dominant as they would have wished to be.

In his 1996 history of republicanism in Australia, “The Captive Republic, “  Mark McKenna dedicates a chapter to “ A White Man’s Republic,” including  a sub topic entitled “ 1887- The Jubilee Year and the Republican Riots.”

 I remain of the view then that they can properly be described as our first republican movement. Before them, we had some individual proponents of some vague republic. But these republicans had a common aim. They wanted to break away from the Empire and form a white republic. They had newspapers and organisations and they held public meeetings and demonstrations. They enjoyed considerable support, but not enough to prevail.

I am also satisfied, pace Mr. Knox, that the second movement was the twentieth century drive for a communist people’s republic on the East European model. If this embarrasses today’s republicans, as Mr. Knox suggests, so be it.  If there were in fact any republican heroes in our past, we would never hear the end of it. 

In the meantime, as the authors in The Australian say, “the dictation clause was quietly dropped from the Migration Act of 1958 and from the 1960s race-based restrictions to migration were gradually relaxed.” 

 The White Australia policy was totally dismantled under the Holt Government. This was supported by the Labor Party, once the strongest proponent of White Australia. A myth has since developed that the later Whitlam government ended the White Australia policy.

White Australia manifested itself in the theatre

  

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"Have you wondered what Opposition Deputy Leader and shadow treasurer Julie Bishop thinks about an Australian republic?” asks D. D. McNicoll in his popular  Strewth column in The Australian, 18 November, 2008.  He continued:

“It was a subject that had never crossed Strewth's mind until we noticed on David Flint's Australians for Constitutional Monarchy website that Bishop delivered the Australian Republican Movement's national republican lecture in Canberra on October11.

“ A check of the News Limited library revealed the speech went unreported in the main Australian newspapers, so we went to the Liberal Party of Australia's website, which lists every important speech and interview Bishop gives.

“There was no mention of the momentous October 11 speech. Moving on to the ARM website, we were elated when we found a link to the annual national republican lecture, but disappointment followed.

“ The last speech listed is the 2007 lecture by Sydney Institute boss Gerard Henderson.”


...don't preach,  especially with an axe....

[Bishop Absalon preaching with an axe: Copenhagen]

"They would do far better to redirect their effort to matters of more immediate concern.”     

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Kings once had court jesters. The modern equivalent is the republican royal watcher.

One such is Mr Barry Everingham. Readers may be interested in how this republican royal watcher sees ACM.

The following appeared in the daily online political report, Crikey on 14 November, 2008 under the headline “Three cheers for bonny prince Charlie, hip hip hooray”

We suggest you count up how many errors you can find in the report. Identify each error, total them and post a comment on our site. We’ll award a free place at our next function in your capital city for the winner.

 

[William Sommers, Court Jester to King Henry VIII]

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This column is about the reviews or comments on  three new books involving Paul Keating, Manning Clarke and Gough Whitlam.  They reminded me of the advice given me by one of the nation’s prominent publishers some years ago.  “Only the left reads books on politics ,” he said.  

He complimented me on the draft of Twilight of the Elites, but sadly, he could not publish it.  Freedom Publishing did, but when a friend asked for a copy in an ABC shop, he was told “We don’t carry that sort of book.”

The recent launch by Alan Jones of a book in which I have a chapter, Liberals and Power, was dominated by the allegations of plagiarism about another chapter by deputy Liberal leader and prominent republican Julie Bishop.

Those allegations fortunately turned out to be untrue. You see, Ms.Bishop hadn’t actually written the chapter but had delegated it to a member of her staff. After all, it was only about the future of the Liberal Party, and one has more important things than that.

For example, one had to prepare for the significantly more important 2008 Annual Republican Lecture which happily coincided with the world financial crisis when the minister one shadows, the Treasurer, was away in Washington attending to such mundane matters.

Well the good staffer, being human, overlooked sending his  footnotes to the editor which would have explained the origin of various sentences in the chapter attributed to Ms. Bishop. Unfortunately, it seems he had also forgotten to insert the requisite quotation marks to show these were not Ms. Bishop’s. 

 In the meantime, the 2008 Republican Lecture was delivered, but curiously, both the ARM and the honorable member’s web editor seem to have forgotten to publish it.

I am told that the publishers and editors have requested Julie Bishop to apologize to each of the other authors the distress caused to them.

 I think mine has gone to the same place my invitation to the 2020 Summit went.




....”Blabbergate” and the three books....







Two reviews about new books appeared in The Australian on 15 November, 2008 and a story about a book launch on 31 October.

I have twice checked the dates of publication, because the editor spent almost all of Cut and Paste on Friday 14 November 2008 ( “Online amateurs ignore journalism basic: check the facts” ) getting stuck into me because I thought I had used the online date of publication and not the print date when I put in a small piece in Crikey on 13 November 2008 (Bob Brown, the G20,the Oz and Australia’s right to know).

This was my second about the scoop in his paper which is increasingly becoming known as “Blabbergate”.

He came back to Crikey in his editorial the following day, 15 November, 2008 ( “Digging up old news”). Now Blabbergate is about the story in The Australian on 25 October, 2008 that our Kevin Rudd had all by himself persuaded George Bush to refer the world financial crisis to the G20, where guess who has a seat. The story also claimed that when our PM referred to the G20, the President said “What’s the G20?” 

 Now among those  who just happened to be at Kirribilli House when the pre-arranged call from came through from GWB was, purely by chance, one Chris Mitchell, the editor-in-chief of The Australian. Some reports are saying he was the only one left when the PM re-emerged.  

The report of the content of the conversation proved to be completely untrue, but even when the American Ambassador complained the PM remained silent. It was only when an exasperated White House briefed the Washington Post that Mr. Rudd admitted the story was untrue.

The Australian claimed I was in error about the date of publication, rather than explaining why it had not told its readers the editor was present when the call came through and why the paper  had not obtained a comment from the White House.

So I do have to be careful about dates in The Australian.

Blabbergate doesn’t suggest close attention to the proper conventions which surround the practice of diplomacy; just as announcing a republican ambition just before meeting your Sovereign is not shall we say diplomatic or even courteous.  

It does not seem to have been managed well, something which we noticed with the 2020 Summit where representation to the overwhelming majority of Australians who are not interested in a politicians’ republic was reduced to one per cent. 

And now to the book reports and reviews.



....Paul Keating ....




The first, by Imre Salusinszki on 31 October, was more about Paul Keating’s speech  while launching “Churchill and Australia” by the well known  Labor Party speechwriter Graham Freudenberg.

Paul Keating said: "The truth is that Gallipoli was shocking for us. Dragged into service by the imperial government in an ill-conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and dispatched -- and none of it in the defence of Australia.

"Without seeking to simplify the then bonds of empire and the implicit sense of obligation, or to diminish the bravery of our own men, we still go on as though the nation was born again or even was redeemed there. (It is) an utter and complete nonsense. For these reasons, I have never been to Gallipoli and I never will."

 

According to Imre Salusinszky, Mr Keating had previously contrasted his attachment to the "patriotic" Kokoda story with John Howard's loyalty to the "nationalist" Gallipoli myth, which he said had "fuelled the Australian conservative story for nine decades".

This is as out of touch as his refusal to fly the Australian flag.

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Among the overflowing congregation at the requiem mass  for the respected and greatly loved Professor George Winterton were several prominent constitutional monarchists.  And yet, as Tony Stephens observed in his excellent obituary, Professor Winterton was an initiator of the modern debate on an Australian republic. (“Fighting for law's golden thread,”  The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November, 2008)

For constitutional monarchists, Professor Winterton, was “ a worthy opponent.”  That judgement comes from one of the nation’s foremost authorities on Australian and British political history, John Paul.

He was indeed. He was always fairness itself. He was, incidentally,  a close reader of these columns, regularly challenging opinions, but congratulating ACM when, for example, we published opposing views.

[Professor George Winterton [1946 - 2008]

On one occasion he warned a group of republicans in my presence, “Watch Professor Flint. Don’t be put off by his style. He will fight us tenaciously and with the utmost vigour.”

I saw him in the street after the 1999 referendum. He said: “Well, David,  you won this time. But next time you’ll have a real fight on your hands.”

“ No we won’t, George,” I said.  “Your side has peaked.

“1999 was your most auspicious year. If you couldn’t do it then, you will never do it.”

“Those things you had which could be used to encourage change – the Centenary of Federation, the new century, the new millennium, the Olympic Games, the Royal divorces, the media- political juggernaut, a generous wealthy benefactor – they will not come together  again.”

“George, I am sorry to tell you this. But it’s all downhill from here.”

He smiled and we went our separate ways.

...highest ethical standards....

A leading authority on the constitution, in everything  that he did he was always gracious and honourable.  He was therefore not embarrassed at all in denouncing error or impropriety in the republican camp.

In 2004, he came to the conclusion that  the head of state dispute  was an “arid and ultimately irrelevant battle over nomenclature” (Quadrant , September, 2004.)

He was also persuaded in recent years that another attempt to change the constitution should not be made during the present reign.

He completely disapproved of creeping republicanism, where opportunistic politicians  remove the signs and symbols of the Crown.

Not only did he think this a misguided tactic.  He once told me “The more the people see the symbols the more they will wish to be rid of the Crown.”  

Of course I said this was not so; people honour and respect the Crown.

But I agreed entirely with his more fundamental objection, succinctly explained by the eminent jurist, Dr Peter Gerangelos, in a  most moving eulogy delivered on Wednesday, 12 November, 2008, in the superb church of St Francis of Assisi, in the very heart of inner Sydney at Paddington.  Father Ken Sergeant, Father Peter McGrath, OFM and Monsignor Tony Doherty, formerly Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral, were the concelebrants of the requiem mass.

Professor Winterton’s fundamental objection to creeping republicanism was that as Australia is in its fundamental law a constitutional monarchy, we must maintain the usages of monarchy and not become a republic by stealth.

To his dear widow, Ros, his children David, Philip, Maddy and Julia, his mother Rita, and his brother Peter, ACM extends our deepest sympathy on the passing of a great Australian.

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A gallery of sixty pictures on the life and times of Prince Charles has been put together by The Guardian newspaper to celebrate his 60th birthday.   It begins with this photograph taken on 21 December, 1948. This shows The Queen, then The Princess Elizabeth, with her one-month-old baby son, Prince Charles, in a crib in Buckingham Palace.  The photograph is by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.

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The people of New South Wales are revolting. Before that confirms any conclusion some readers may have, I should explain that on all indications, the NSW people  are exasperated with the government of New South Wales, which they returned in  2007.

The Daily Telegraph headline on a report by Simon Benson  on 13 November 2008 said:“The people of New South Wales have spoken: Just sack yourself Premier and call election”

[Parliament House, Sydney]

Either the politicians and the media were lying, or they did not know what they are talking about.

Absent the loss of their majority, or illegal or unconstitutional behaviour which would invite dismissal, the people of New South Wales are saddled witha government they clearly do not want.

[Sir John Kerr]

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His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is 60 today. In the Herald Sun ("Prince Charles hits 60, still waiting," 14 November, 2008) David Murray sounds a mostly positive note.

Murray describes the comments of The Queen on the occasion of her visit to the headquarters of the Prince’s Trust – the charity set up by the Prince “to offer practical solutions to help change young lives”. Her Majesty was fulsome in her praise and concluded her speech as follows:

“For Prince Philip and me, there can be no greater pleasure or comfort than to know that into his care are safely-entrusted the guiding principles of public service and duty to others.” (Text of The Queen's speech during her visit to the Prince's Trust Headquarters, 12 November 2008.)

 David Murray comments on this:

“Her words ride a coach and horses through the arguments of those who claim the monarch has considered passing the crown directly to her grandson, William”.




I know that some people are under the impression that The Queen can give the crown to whomever she likes. They do not seem to notice that the crown is not something The Queen can just give away.

There are settled laws of inheritance – sons do not inherit before their fathers – and there is a settled law of Royal succession. For Prince William to inherit before the Prince of Wales would require a severe ruction in the constitutions of sixteen independent realms (including Australia).

In the Glorious Revolution of 1688 Parliament decided it had the right to offer the crown jointly to Mary and her husband William of Orange in place of her father and his father-in-law, James II. Yet handing the crown to Prince William would make the Glorious Revolution a mere “constitutional tidying-up exercise” by comparison.

Nevertheless it is not surprising that some people somewhere think it would be the easiest thing in the world and that it would be enough to wish it, to make it so. In a large enough population you can find people prepared to believe anything.

The surprising thing is that journalists think this possible – even to discount it. Are they really that ignorant?"

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Just as Senator Brown made his irresponsible proposal that the Australian people  cast a vote  of no confidence in one of the world’s most successful  constitutional systems, official preliminary results indicate that in the recent election, the New Zealand  Republican Party  improved its vote.

Of over 2 million votes counted, 298 were cast for the Republican Party in 2008, six more than all the votes in 1999. That’s 0.01%, which gives you an idea of the interest and priority New Zealanders give to the question. We thank the prominent psephologist who drew our attention to this.

...Senator Brown’s irresponsible proposal....

Meanwhile in Australia, Greens Leader Bob Brown says he will introduce legislation for a plebiscite on “ a” republic.  He gave no details. We are sure the sort of republic he wants is a politicians’ republic.

It is difficult to conceive of a more irresponsible proposal.

Senator Brown should first indicate the flaws in the constitution he has identified and then say how he would cure them.

 To try to get the people to throw out one of the world’s most successful constitutions is to invite a long period of constitutional instability while the Senator and his ilk wrestle with some new constitution.

Senator Brown announced this during a major economic crisis. Just as the shadow Treasurer, Julie Bishop chose to deliver the Republican Lecture in the very week when the world financial crisis was at its height (“Perhaps it is the chardonnay,” 11 October 2008) .

We don’t know what Ms. Bishop had to say. No press release was issued, nor is the text on her or the ARM site. Did her Leader, Mr. Turnbull, explain to her what should be obvious  - that as shadow Treasurer she should not be seen to be pushing republicanism especially at such a time?

Anyway, Senator Brown told the ABC on 11 November, that it was quite appropriate to revive the republican debate during the global financial crisis.

"I think people have got to have a spectrum of things to be thinking about and looking forward to and the country doesn't stop because of the financial crisis," he said.

"This is a thing about values and how we value our nation.

"It's a stimulus to put the issue back onto the agenda."

"This is a bill to have a plebiscite with the next election in 2010 to ask people whether they want a republic - yes or no," he said.

 "That would lead onto a further vote down the line if people vote yes - and I believe they will - as to what sort of a republic."




...NZ PM elect on the inevitable republic, and yet...



   Across the Tasman, the National’s multimillionaire leader, John Key, is likely to become Prime Minister the Prime Minister of New Zealand.  According to The Times of 9 November, he is an admirer of Tony Blair.

Like his Labour opponent, Helen Clarke, he says it is inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic, although probably not for another decade.

Well I suppose that if it’s inevitable, you don’t need to do anything about it. You don’t even have to tell us about it being inevitable.

“If Australia becomes a republic there is no question it will set off quite an intense debate on this side of the Tasman,” he told the press.

 “We would have to have a referendum if we wanted to move towards it. But I don’t think that will happen for some years yet.”

Curiously, he recently said he prefers the old honours system of knighthoods to the present system. "The aspect of titles that I personally liked is that you could celebrate success in New Zealanders and you can't always do that with this [new] system," he said.

He did not expalin how this would work in a republic. Of course many republics grant knighthoods, and Australian republican politicians readily accept them. They just don't like Australian knighthoods. 

According to the Sunday Star Times of, 26 October 2008, he said that  changing the honours system was not something he would do in his first week but "down the track we could have a look at that, have a review".

This attracted considerable support from some eminent New Zealanders, but not Helen Clark who condemns titles as “aristocratic”.

Sir Richard Hadlee, knighted in 1990 for services to cricket, said Key was "absolutely right, I support it 100%".  Titles, he said, were a better way to recognise people.

"It's a tremendous accolade for achievement. You can't take anything away from being a sir or dame."

Dame Susan Devoy agreed. She received her honour in 1998, and said the biggest problem with the present system is that people didn't know who they were.

Opera singer Dame Malvina Major also said the present system didn't work.

"I don't know who has these lovely honours, the recognition isn't there.

"When I go to to Europe and the US people love to know you're a knight or a dame. It's really lovely. I agree with John Key."

I wonder if anyone has  asked La Stupenda her views? 

[Dame Joan Sutherland as Rodelinda]

 And in the meantime, Mr John Dauth LVO has been received by The Queen as the new High Commissioner for Australia. A distinguished diplomat, Mr. Dauth was From 1977-1980 Mr Dauth worked on secondment to Buckingham Palace as Assistant Press Secretary to H.M. the Queen and Press Secretary to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.

The foreign Minister, the Hon. Stephen Smith is to be congratulated on his role in Mr. Dauth’s selection.

A frequent untruth made by the movement for a politicians’ republic is that The Queen is only interested in UK athletes. Only an ignorant person or a blatant liar would say this.

On 10 November, 10th November, 2008, The Queen gave a Reception at Windsor Castle for the Australian Touring Rugby Team to mark the Centenary of the first tour by an Australian touring rugby team to Great Britain. It was shown in some TV news.

But next Commonwealth Games, or some sporting event, we will be told again by someone that The Queen is only  interested in the UK team.

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Sir John Monash was not only our greatest general, but arguably, the greatest among the First World War allies. The British Prime Minister Lloyd George said Monash was the one man who could have replaced Field Marshall Haig and have led the entire British Army, which included the armies of the dominions. But two leading journalists tried to overturn his appointment to command the Australian forces.

As we noted here ("The Great War " by Les Carlyon, 19 December 2006) Keith Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s father, and Charles Bean, the official war correspondent conspired to reverse a cabinet decision and to have another officer appointed in his place. To his great credit, he would have nothing to do with the manoeuvre.  The story is told by Les Carlyon in a chapter in “The Great War”. It is most appropriately entitled, “The press gang.”

Both Bean and Murdoch were considerable men, but they crossed the line in their attempt to play politics. The journalist playing the courtier is sadly nothing new, but I am still astounded by the unashamed bias that the media displayed in the 1999 referendum. I was more recently taken aback by the way the American and Western media campaigned for Senator Barack Obama in the recent US election.

[Sir John Monash]

[On the battlefield: HM King George V knights Sir John Monash]

[Australian and American soldiers dug in at Le Hamel: Australian War Museum photograph 02690]

“I shall go back to-morrow and say to my countrymen: “I have seen the Australians. I have looked in their faces. I know that these men . . . will fight alongside of us again until the cause for which we are all fighting is safe for us and for our children.”The Official War History  by Charles Bean continues:

“As the old man panted, partly from emotion, partly from asthma, General MacLagan, taking up a call from one of the Diggers behind him, led three tremendous cheers for France.

“De jolis enfants,” said Clemenceau, as he turned to go.”

Max Prisc reminds us that when Sir John Monash died on 8 October, 1931, 300,000 people lined the streets of Melbourne for the biggest funeral in Australia to that time.

“His casket was placed on a gun carriage after the church service and 10,000 returned soldiers, eight abreast and with hats over their hearts, filed past before leading him to his grave in the Jewish section of Brighton cemetery.”

A new memorial to the Battle of Le Hamel was dedicated on 9 November. The old one had an etching of Sir John; unfortunately the new one does not. But the words of George Clemenceau are there:

“I have seen the Australians, I have looked in their faces; I know these men will fight alongside us until the cause for which we are all fighting is safe for us and for our children" 

[Clemenceau, Le Tigre, crushes The German Kaiser]

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