Arise Australia,our adolescence is behind us

Journalist and author

Were one to design an institution that contradicted many of Australia’s most cherished nostrums it would not look dissimilar to a monarchy. This is a country that likes to think of itself as egalitarian and breezily informal,and yet it continues to embrace a system based on hereditary privilege and strict protocol.

Australians are supposed to be anti-authoritarian – a myth,I know – and yet they continue to countenance an institution founded on deference and compliance. This can be a fiercely patriotic nation – and seldom more so than when its cricket team takes the field against England – and yet its head of state remains a Pom. The Queen or King of Australia should be a distinctly un-Australian concept.

Australia’s head of state,Britain’s King Charles III.

Australia’s head of state,Britain’s King Charles III.Getty Pool

And yet,the national broadcaster,ABC,looks like it will be broadcasting the King’s speech on Christmas Day for years to come. Polling also suggests the “King Charles moment” that republicans here have been anticipating for decades has been anti-climactic. A Roy Morgan survey conducted after the Queen’s death in September found60 per cent of Australians want to retain the monarchy,a“resounding majority”,up 5 percentage points from 10 years ago. Both genders and all age groups favour the status quo.

These numbers may have been inflated by a sympathy vote after the Queen’s death. Besides,Australians have always stood to applaud a long and dogged innings. But the pollsters also uncovered an attachment to the monarchy born of an anathema to change. “If it ain’t broke,don’t fix it” was a common reply. That is what is so worrying for campaigners agitating for a homegrown head of state. Elizabethan republicans,who were so respectful of a beloved individual,may well have been superseded by Carolean shoulder-shruggers,who are willing to tolerate what they see as a benign institution.

For all that,there is no reason for the Australian Republican Movement to panic. Labor has made clear that a republican referendum would be a second-term agenda item. In the meantime,the Indigenous Voice to parliament is rightly the priority. If successful,Uluru would be an important confidence-builder,demonstrating that Australians are willing to modernise the constitution. Moreover,republicanism would be the next logical progression after Uluru,and another important step along the road to reconciliation. The monarchy,after all,has always been the most visible manifestation of this ancient land’s colonial occupier.

In the former Socceroos captain,Craig Foster,the republican movement has a talented new talisman. Foster’s short,two-minute summation on YouTube setting out his store is an impressive work of communication. It includes a Lincolnian flourish:“One of us,for us,by us,” he says,echoing the “of the people,by the people,for the people” of the Gettysburg address.

In another neat formulation,Foster argues the country is “old enough,smart enough,experienced enough and capable enough”,something that shouldn’t need saying but counters that self-belittling idea that Australia is still in a phase of adolescence and not yet ready for the full independence of adulthood. Even if Foster is only half as good a republican spokesman as he is a refugee advocate and soccer pundit,the House of Windsor has much to fear. Certainly,I know who I would back in a penalty shootout between Foster and the new chairman of the Australian Monarchist League,the former Liberal senator Eric Abetz.

As a Briton,I have always been surprised at how Australia retains so much of its Britishness. The national day celebrates the moment of colonisation. Much of the country enjoys a public holiday on the monarch’s birthday,something which does not even happen in my homeland. But in this Indo-Pacific century,Australia should define itself on its own terms,without harking back to the “Mother Country”.

Nor should the republican debate be contaminated by America’s recent troubles. Curiously,one of the main findings of the Roy Morgan poll was that Aussies did not want to end up like the United States. That is understandable,but nobody is suggesting a presidential system with executive powers,or that Government House in Canberra should become the White House.

The new “Australian Choice Model” proposed by the ARM is pretty easy to understand,and thus avoids a common pitfall of unsuccessful political campaigns:when you are explaining,you are losing. A shortlist of candidates would be nominated by federal,state and territory parliaments and then be put to a nationwide vote.

The model is not without its weaknesses. Elections for the five-year post could easily end up being politicised along partisan lines. But Australia would ideally follow the lead of Ireland where candidates chosen by consensus have regularly emerged. The Emerald Isle has produced a string of worthy presidents:Mary Robinson,who was not only the first woman to win the presidency but also the first independent candidate;Mary McAleese,who was born in Belfast and returned unopposed for a second term;and the present incumbent,Michael D. Higgins,an avuncular poet re-elected in a landslide.

Over the coming decade,the shifting demographics of an ever more multicultural Australia will surely lean towards a republic. Younger generations are less wedded to the monarchy. Uluru should come first,and then an Australian head of state. “It’s not quite time,” is hardly a thrilling rallying cry,but it encapsulates the current state of republican play in the year of Queen Elizabeth’s passing.

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Nick Bryant is a former BBC correspondent and the author of The Rise and Fall of Australia:How a Great Nation Lost Its Way.

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