The real reason support for a republic is waning
Harry and Meghan have been credited for the upswing in support for the monarchy. But culprits much closer to home have actually put paid to the republican movement, writes Michael McGuire.
The word is any hope Australians had of becoming a republic has now been buried by the celebrity onslaught that was the recent visit of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Apparently, Australians fell so heavily in love with Prince Harry and Meghan that the idea of an Australian head of state evaporated in a cloud of royal perfume.
On Monday, a Newspoll appeared to confirm the worst for Australia’s diminishing band of republicans.
The poll said support for ditching the monarchy had fallen to a 25-year low, with only 40 per cent in favour of installing an Australian head of state, compared to the 48 per cent who wanted to hold on to the kite strings that attach us to England.
It seemed to be generally agreed that the reason for the surge in support for Queen Elizabeth and her heirs was the Harry and Meghan love-in.
But are Australians really that shallow?
Harry may be a decent chap, who really knows?
And Meghan did some sterling work on Suits.
But would you really want them as your head of state because they took a cute pic in the rain in Dubbo?
As an aside: Is there any group of people for whom the bar has been set as low as it is for the Windsors of England?
The hysteria because a women held an umbrella for her husband or because a bloke managed to fetch his own bags from the boot seemed a little out of kilter with the difficulty of the task.
Perhaps the lure of celebrity in a celebrity-obsessed age played some marginal role in the jump in support for the monarchy, but it’s not the main game.
The Newspoll also found across that 25-year span the percentage of people who are “strongly against’’ becoming a republic had only moved from 21 per cent to 22 per cent.
Essentially, the number of hard-core monarchists hasn’t changed during that quarter century.
Indeed, according to Newspoll, there were more people “strongly against’’ a republic in January 2016 than there is now.
Where the numbers change is among the rest of the population.
And the reason for that is not to do with the royal family but to do with ourselves.
The instability in a system that has given us five prime ministers in five years is naturally going to make people wary of further change.
On top of that there is no evidence that any of the current crop of politicians would have the talent or leadership ability to manage such a momentous transition.
Look at how the Liberal Party manages its own leadership changes.
They wanted to dump Malcolm Turnbull in favour of Peter Dutton and ended up with Scott Morrison.
It turned out Dutton couldn’t count to 43, presumably because he ran out of fingers and toes, while Morrison hasn’t been able to explain so far just exactly why he is prime minister.
Which all comes back to trust in the system.
As a head of state of Australia, Queen Elizabeth is a terrible choice because she is not Australian. But she has been there a long time.
The monarchy provides at least the illusion of stability, while the Australian political class eats itself from the inside out. And it’s not just the politicians.
Banks, churches, business, unions. All have let down Australians in one way or another.
A lack of trust in institutions has become a staple of modern life.
Now, the Labor Party has announced it will hold a plebiscite on whether Australia should become a republic should it win the next election.
The Labor Party is led by Bill Shorten, a bloke a long, long way from convincing the electorate he is either trustworthy or reliable.
It seems unlikely at the moment that a plebiscite would garner a majority vote.
Which leaves Australia in the position of not being able to trust or find an actual Australian to do what should be the most Australian of jobs — act as the nation’s head of state.
Michael McGuire is a journalist for The Adelaide Advertiser.