After Horse went to press yesterday, the news shot around the world that Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully at the age of 96. The nonagenarian monarch was one the throne for 69 years; having seen 16 Prime Ministers as Queen, and having lived through two world wars, one hot and one cold. Her son Charles III will ascend the throne and oversee a Britain which has decided to play the Australian game of the Thirsty Knife with its Prime Ministers, as a result of brexitatiously brexiting from the European Union and is now left shivering on its own brexitatious bed of nails.
The vast majority of Australians have only ever seen one monarch, some two, some four, though there are a very few number of people who have seen as many as six. Even before the Queen has been laid in state, there have already been discussions about Australia becoming a republic. It is almost as if the republicans have been waiting for this day just to unleash all kinds of agitation. I think that Australia becoming republic is inevitable but mostly because we have a lot of people who after looking at all the other nations around, have decided that we want that. Australia will sleepwalk towards becoming a republic because we simply do not have the imagination to consider what would happen if this came to be.
Advocates for a republic want to wrap the argument in optimism by saying that it is time that we "grew up" and left the monarchy as though it was the same as moving out of home and despite the fact that Australia hasn't really been interferred with by Britain since about 1941. The argument is wrapped around not much more than a change of symbols; seemingly without much consideration of what mechanically happens afterwards.
For my part, I am not really a monarchist. Granted that I do see the story of monarchy as a line of succession which goes well beyond Alfred the Great but that story also happens to include wars, genocides, slavery, exploitation of people and resources; which would have happened with a monarchy or not. The outrages of history when the abuse of greatness disjoins remorse from power, happens if the person at the top is a King, Emperor, Kaiser, Fuhrer, Lord Protector, Captain, General, Pope, Chairman, or President. I don't think that it really makes that much of a difference whether the King is on the back of the coins or not, or if it is Marianne, or Lady Liberty, or a shield thing, or a fasces, or anything else.
The suggestion for the mechanics of becoming a republic is usually that we'd replace the Governor-General with a President and that nothing will change and that it will all be lovely. Change the name of the Office; change the coins, change the flag; job done. Nope. Politics is never ever that simple and the danger lurking behind the curtain is that where the is an office of power, there is always someone who wants that office. The people who want the offices of power, are almost always the people who are the most ill-advised to have them.
The biggest argument against becoming a republic is in fact the Appointments Scandal with Governor-General Peter Hurley and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. If we run the clock back to 1999, and the Republic of Australia became a thing, then the whole matrix of circumstances changes.
The Australian people rejected the 1999 Republic model, not because they were particularly loyal to the Crown but because polling at the time suggested that the model was wrong. The Referendum Convention although well meaning, was always looking inwards and never really saw the obvious fact that the Australian people have a very strong will and want to elect the head-of-state. The 1999 Republic model failed because the people of Australia want to choose their Grand Poohbah.
As we learned repeatedly throughout the premiership of John Howard and the initial periods of premiership of Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull, and Scott Morrison, the word that gets thrown about is 'mandate'. John Howard frequently claimed a mandate to do horrible things, immediately after an election; based upon the political philosophical standpoint that an election enables the person who has just been handed the keys of office, the power to act. Conversely, incoming Prime Minister are always berated and held to ridicule with the statement that they have no mandate to act because they weren't elected.
If the Republic of Australia was a thing, then the appointments of Scott Morrison to the Ministries of Everything, would have perhaps still been scandalous but immediately justified by the fact that the Grand Poobah was elected to the position which gave him the commissions. As it stands, and as it should have stood, not many people really know what the powers of the Governor-General are and that's a brilliant thing because they are usually loathe to use them. If the Republic of Australia was a thing, then the appointments of Scott Morrison to the Ministries of Everything, was not only just but mandated.
Can you imagine what might have be wrought if Peter Dutton or Pauline Hanson, had been President? If the office of the President is an elected role, we have to absolutely assume that not only will knaves want the role but that knaves will get the role. Australia, which has been crabwalking away from Britain for 122 years, has spent the last 77 years crabwalking towards the United States culturally. We have sent John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, to the tob job recently; we must assume that electing the President immediately opens the job to mandated collusion.
As for the Queen herself, she was someone's mum, grandma, great-grandma, and she got given the job because of circumstances set into motion while she was still a teenager. To be in a job for 69 years is hard. To have been living in a fishbowl for 69 years is even harder. Probably her only night of freedom ever, was on one strange night in 1945 when for a while, unbridled joy broke out. If nothing else, 96 was a decent innings and even your opponents will clap you as you make the long walk back to the pavilion.
As for Australia, the world has changed and already we have people who want change the system further; without regard for the consequences which will unfold.
The Queen is dead. Long live the King. Long may we say 'God Save the King" because nothing will save us from the knaves who we absolutely will install.
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