The City of Melbourne, the state government and Governor have no official plans to mark Monday's Diamond Jubilee, reports Carolyn Webb in The Age 3 February 2012, which came to us through the excellent Monarchist Alliance.
"But true believers are holding several private do's. Bryan Stertern-Gill, chairman of the Monarchist League in Australia's Victorian chapter, will attend a friend's private dinner in Melbourne for 40 people. The league is planning a bigger function for the 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation in June 2013.
"Mr Stertern-Gill said a ''great many'' Australians cared about the jubilee. ''She's performed 60 years of sensational service,'' he said. ''I think she's a wonderful woman. She's dedicated her life to her job, and I have nothing but admiration for her as a person and the manner in which she's carried out her duties.''
"An education worker and keen monarchist called Stephen will hold an afternoon tea at work on Monday.
Staff will bring a ''show and tell'' of royal memorabilia and he has ordered a cake inscribed with ''ER II, 60 years, Diamond Jubilee, 1952-2012''.
"At the Hotel Windsor ballroom on Monday, 150 people, mostly from 12 local ''loyal societies'', and former governors-general Michael Jeffery and Peter Hollingworth will enjoy a $145-a-head, three course dinner. The societies include the Company of Armigers (coat of arms enthusiasts), the Australia-Britain Society and the English Speaking Union.
"The dinner organiser, Royal Overseas League president Jason Ronald, a Tallarook farmer, says we should toast the Queen.'
As the 1998 Constitutional Convention drew to a close, it finally dawned on the Australian Republican Movement that ACM had been completely truthful in the unilateral assurances we gave that we would not use our numbers to sabotage the choice by the republicans of their preferred model for the referendum.
[ Truth and republican abundance - Nicolas de Courteille ]
They feared we would swing our numbers behind the McGarvie model, which would have changed the result. This would have resulted in the McGarvie model going to the referendum.
Under the Australian Constitution, the people must have the details of what precisely is being proposed. The Founders were well aware of how the blank cheque plebiscite - which is just a question - could be and was regularly misused.
It was suggested in the press that we should vote “tactically” and support McGarvie as the ”least worst” model.
The McGarvie model proposed that The Queen be replaced by a council of retired governors general and chief justices. The Prime Minister would then advise the Council on the appointment and dismissal of the governor–general.
Its supporters believed that such an unwieldy contraption could replace the Crown and command, if not the loyalty and affection of the people, at least their respect.
No constitutional monarchist did.
It was thought by supporters of tactical voting that such a model would command little support among the public and would be easy to defeat in a referendum.
I suspect they were correct in that assumption, which was no doubt the reason why the Australian Republican Movement was so opposed to the model.
...tactical voting discussed...
This issue of “tactical voting” was discussed - but not debated - at a meeting of monarchist delegates chaired by Lloyd Waddy.
It was not debated simply because not one delegate spoke in favour of this tactic. Note that - not one delegate supported this tactic.
I remember in particular one of the South Australian delegates, Father John Fleming, speaking strongly against the proposal. He was supported by another South Australian, Bishop John Hepworth.
They were an impressive sight at the Convention, was the quality of their interventions. The Bishop – later an Archbishop - wore a large pectoral cross which had been presented to him by the Pope. I had thought he was the Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide; it was explained to me that he was the Primate of The Traditional Anglican Communion.
Father Fleming’s argument against supporting the McGarvie model was powerful and in my view, completely persuasive. This was that the monarchist delegates had been elected on the basis that they would not vote for any republican model. The monarchists should not support the McGarvie model merely to eliminate the more popular models, and then campaign against it. That, everyone agreed, would be wrong in principle.
....ARM suspicious...
In the meantime, fearing that the monarchists would do what we said they would not, Malcolm Turnbull made amendments to the Keating-Turnbull republican model to answer criticisms made first by ACM and then by Richard McGarvie. These particularly related to the dismissal of the President.
The result of the amendments was that the proposed republic would be the only one in history where it would be easier for the prime minister to sack the president than his cook.
The president would be instantly dismissible without notice, without reason, and without appeal. The president would have been the puppet of the prime minister.
The truly lamentable thing was that people who should have known better went to the referendum supporting it. Some later admitted that this model was highly undesirable. But they were prepared to do anything to have a politicians' republic - even giving up a significant check and balance of the Westminster system against the abuse of power.
...Convention debate....
At the Convention, the Prime Minister, John Howard, proposed ( Convention Debates,Volume 3, Thursday, 5th of February, at page 329) that the procedure for deciding which model republic should be put to the people involve the delegates in two votes. The first would be:
“‘If Australia were to become a republic, do you favour McGarvie, do you favour a direct election, do you favour two-thirds?’ “
“I think we should vote on those first, and then the victor that comes from that should be pitted against the status quo.”
Father Fleming rose and said (Volume 3, Thursday the 5th of February, at pages 330-31)
“ I appreciate the Prime Minister’s intervention and am broadly in support of it, but there are those of us who have been elected to this Convention who cannot vote for any particular model, and for very good reasons.
However, I for one would find it easier to assist the Convention if a resolution were put to us along the lines that there be a referendum on a particular model. In that case, I am voting for a referendum on a particular model rather than voting for a model..”
Mr Howard immediately signalled his agreement that the monarchists not be involved in the selection of the model, and only whether the model preferred by republicans be put to a referendum.
...honour...
The monarchists thus refused to support the McGarvie model, much to the very publicly expressed chagrin of republican Professor Craven and the privately expressed views of several others.
But as John Howard said in an interview with me in 2009, ACM had behaved with honour.
This was corroborated by Cardinal Pell at the 1998 Constitutional Convention. Speaking to a motion endorsing the referendum model, His Eminence said:
“Yesterday the monarchists voted with discipline, integrity and honour. Lloyd Waddy was the very model of a modern major general. They did not vote tactically. Their virtue brought its own reward. Republican disarray yesterday was our own doing. The republicans know well that to divide is to rule even when the division is self-inflicted.”
Mr. Tim Fischer, former Deputy Prime Minister and republican, offered similar praise at the Corowa Conference 2001 where again we refrained from voting on the choice of republican models.
Her Majesty celebrates her Diamond Jubilee of Accession in February 2012 and of Coronation in 2013. She will have served as Queen of New Zealand and Australia and Head of the Commonwealth for 60 years.
To mark this occasion St George’s Cathedral will hold a Festal Evensong on Sunday 5 February 2012 followed by a Champagne Reception on the Parvis. Attended by the Governor of Western Australia, His Excellency Mr Malcolm McCusker AO QC, Her Majesty’s representative in the State, this occasion also gathers the heads and members of Perth’s very many Royal associations and foundations.
Accession Day is also Waitangi Day, the national day of New Zealand, of which Her Majesty is Queen and Head of State. This Evensong therefore also marks the anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) with members of the New Zealand community of Perth, the singing of the New Zealand national anthem, and prayers (in English and in Maori) for New Zealand and her people.
All are welcome.
Time: 5.00pm.
Venue: The Cathedral. To find us, please click here.
Further information:
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or (08) 9325 5766.
Bottom right: Queen Elizabeth II after her Accession to the Throne on 6 February 1952.
Having been raised in Irish politics, wrote Philip O'Carroll from , Fitzroy North, Victoria in a letter to The Australian (1/2), I was never indoctrinated to love the English.
But knowing Australia was going to be claimed by some European power, I say we are lucky it was the British. We speak English, and from England inherited its superior legal system and centuries-deep democratic values.
The Union Jack says more about our way of life than anything else you could put in a corner of a flag. I say let's proudly keep it.
This letter from John Cape of Black Rock in Victoria appeared in The Australian on 2 February 2012.
Neville Wright (Letters 31/1) claims that we need to become a republic because we "will not progress until we rid ourselves of an overlord."
What?
An Australian has just been awarded a Nobel prize. Australian business leaders work at senior levels in corporations throughout the world. One person born here heads the greatest media empire ever seen.
We have a female governor-general, a female prime minister and a female attorney-general.
Our banks are among the strongest in the world, as is our currency. Our armed services have a reputation second to none, and our sportspeople acquit themselves well wherever they compete.
We have a freedom that is envied by millions. Not bad for a country that hasn't progressed.
This is a report in the section on the Diamond Jubilee on the ACM site.
At 6.30 pm on Sunday 5 February, 2012, Candlemass, the 60th anniversary of the Accession of Her Majesty will be celebrated at a Diamond Jubilee Evensong and Benediction at All Saints' Church Wickham Terrace, Brisbane.
This historic church is the oldest existing Anglican Church in Brisbane. It was opened for worship on the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 8th September, 1869, replacing an earlier structure of 1862.
Its style is nineteenth century gothic revival, with buttressed walls of rough faced rubble, porphyry and sandstone, and a metal clad roof. The interior has a fine example of a hammer-beam roof, which is rare in Australia.
All Saints' Church has played no small part in the story of Brisbane's development into a city of culture and significance. Well-known identities who worshipped at All Saints' in the nineteenth century included Sir Robert Ramsey Mackenzie, Sir James Dickson, (both of whom served as Premiers of Queensland, the latter becoming Minister of defence in the first Commonwealth Government), Mrs Mary Peattie, and the Hon. John Douglas.
To this day, All Saints' is regarded by many as the "Parish Church of the City of Brisbane".
The Australian has published a republican threat that if the Australian people do not agree to some politicians’ republic - soon - “someone else“ will do it for us.
This can only mean a foreign power or a coup d'état. Given the loyalty of the Army, Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force and their long standing tradition of respect for the constitution, this republican must be referring to an intervention by some foreign power.
[ Stalin addresses the Supreme Soviet to the unanimous approval and acclaim of the delegates ]
Australia's second republican movement was in fact dedicated to such a result. They pretended that the Australian people would themselves adopt a People's or Soviet republic which would then introduce a socialist utopia.
The sad reality is that on the East European experience, this could only be achieved through a military conquest. No country has ever freely chosen such a fate.
The suggestion of this being achieved in these days in Australia is surely ridiculous – at least, I hope that it is.
...attitude...
But it shows you the attitude of some republicans. If you don't agree with them, their republic will be imposed. In the nineties there was a serious attempt to close off the debate by the use of ridicule and the denial of equal access to the media.
There have even been suggestions in the past that the British Parliament should impose a politicians’ republic on us, forgetting that the British had long given up any vestigial legislative power over Australia.
There is a warning in all of this. It is that the politicians’ republic which they wish to impose on us will in no way improve our democracy and may well lead to its diminution.
So beware of republicans when they threaten you, ridicule you and attempt to close off the debate.
The debate over the constitutional recognition of indigenous people is continuing. Keith Windschuttle argues that principle premise of the expert panel is wrong. He says that the Constitution does not contain provisions which could be considered racist. Indeed, he argues that it was not the intention of the Founders to discriminate against the Aboriginal people in the two sections targetted by the expert panel.
Mr.Windschuttle is a prominent participant in indigenous affairs, and has researched and published widely on these matters.
He has argued that some key conclusions which have been accepted among academic historians are at least questionable. He has also questioned whether the research which supported those conclusions demonstrated the rigour one would reasonably expect.
Rather than debating him, the reaction has too often been personal, dismissive and abusive.
The first was about the call to repeal section 25. This states : "For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State, all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of the race resident in that state shall not be counted."
It is said that section 25 contemplates a denial of the franchise on the grounds of race. Keith Windschuttle argues the real reason this was included was because Queensland and Western Australia did not allow full-blood Aborigines to vote in state elections.
He says that our Founders actually wanted a measure to bring both states into line with all the majority of states where Aborigines did have the franchise. He says the section was designed to penalise any state that did not conform. This was to be done by reducing their federal representation – a powerful lever.
In other words, rather than denying them the franchise, the framers of the Constitution supported giving all Aborigines that right from the very outset.
...race power...
The second point relates to section 51( xxvi) , which says the parliament can make laws with respect to "the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws." The panel says this could support laws discriminating against aboriginal people.
Mr. Windschuttle denies this. In a response to law student Michael Brull's commentary on the ABC’s website, The Drum, he includes, among other authorities, this conclusion by Justice Mary Gaudron : “s 51(xxvi) will not support a law depriving people of a particular racial group of their citizenship or their rights as citizens.”
It is proposed these be unveiled with the inauguration of a (politicians’) republic.
Pending the realisation of some vague undefined politicians’ republic a “distant prospect” Australia Day should be “reshaped”.
The proposer is Troy Bramston, a former adviser and speechwriter to Kevin Rudd , a former President of NSW Young Labor and Secretary and Vice President of the NSW Fabian Society. A frequent commentator he is a prominent republican.
He worked for years with the Australia Day Council and claims the Australia Day address was his idea, which explains a lot.
Was it his idea to invite and English knight, Sir Michael Parkinson, to tell us to become a republic?
...purge symbols...
He wants a purge of all of our national symbols, and cringes every time he sees the Australian Flag.
He very carefully does not repeat the usual republican untruth that Australians did not fight under the National Flag during the world wars.
He says it was not the ”sole” flag, using the artifice that the blue ensign was not “official “until legislation in 1953.
This is not so. It was approved under the Royal Prerogative in 1903. This was announced in Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No 8 of 1903 which states that King Edward VII approved the essential designs for the flag of Australia, known as the Commonwealth blue ensign, and for the flag of the merchant navy, known as the Commonwealth red ensign.
...Presidential visit to the House..
Mr Bramston has another proposal – one which will make most Australians laugh at its naïveté - to bring to Australia the US President’s State of the Union address to “set national policy goals for the year ahead and articulate a unifying vision for the nation.”
A unifying vision?
It is typical of republicans that they have little appreciation of the differences between a politicians’ republic like the US and our crowned republic.
This is a report in the section on the Diamond Jubilee on the ACM site.
New South Wales MP David Elliott has taken action to allow constituents to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
A newspaper circulating in Mr Elliott's electorate of Baulkham Hills, the Hills Shire Times of 10 January, reported that if you wished to pay tribute to the Queen on her 60 years on the throne, you could until Australia Day sign a card to her at Mr Elliott's office. After Australia Day Mr Elliott would send the card to Buckingham Palace. There was a similar report in another newspaper circulating in the electorate, the Hills News of 17 January.
Mr Elliott told the Hills Shire times "The Queen embodies all the best characteristics of our Commonwealth, devotion to country, devotion to the community and unity of all peoples under one banner.”
As the Diamond Jubilee celebrations will continue throughout the year, the British celebrations being in June around the Queen's Birthday, other Australian members of Parliament may wish to launch similar initiatives to Mr Elliott.
...David Elliott, monarchist...
Mr Elliott rose to the rank of captain in the Australian Army and was awarded the Australian service medal for his service in the peacekeeping force in Bougainville Papua New Guinea. He was appointed ACM's National Campaign Director for the referendum campaign in 1999, reporting to me through the Executive Director Mrs Kerry Jones .
For that he organised an hierarchical structure which reached into every federal electorate through ACM's State and Territory divisions. At the time of the referendum, there were 55,000 rank-and-file supporters working for the no case. In addition he was the executive to what was the ACM national “high command” which during the heat of the campaign, met every morning.
I remember being told by a person very high in the Yes case how admirable, effective and disciplined the No case was. There were in fact two divisions of the No case.
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This is a report in the section on the 
