UNCROWDED HOUSE GREETS GREAT REPUBLICAN TRUCE
Last week wasn’t a great one for Peter FitzSimons, Australia’s leading comma gorilla.
First he copped all manner of grief for his stand-in effort as a presenter on the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent:
The program paid one of Fairfax Media’s highest-paid columnists its standard fee and FitzSimons told us: “They paid me bugger-all and for what it’s worth I donated every cent to charity anyway — The Footpath Library, which gives second-hand books to homeless people.”
Johannes Leak’s view:
And then FitzSimons ventured north for a summit with rival republican David Muir. You’ll recall that the initial republican push was derailed by a dispute over how the head of a republic might be elected; some supported a public vote, and others preferred the notion of parliamentary appointment.
Well, nearly 20 years later, our warring anti-monarchists have finally reached a compromise:
Brisbane witnessed on Thursday two major players in Australia’s emerging republican debate agreeing to support each other’s model for a future Australian republic if their model is rejected by voters …
The Australian Republican Movement’s chair, Peter FitzSimons, and the Real Republic chair, David Muir – with different models for an Australian republic – in Brisbane on Thursday vowed to support whichever model is supported by the Australian people.
So, whichever way this goes, we’ll have half of the republican movement backing a proposal they don’t believe in. Not that anyone particularly cares:
Mr FitzSimons, the red-bandanna-clad former Wallaby, told a disappointingly small crowd at QUT the ARM would prefer to thank Queen Elizabeth during her lifetime for her excellent service to Australia, as a new republic came into force.
Keep at it, Peter.