Piers Akerman: Peter FitzSimons’ latest plan for Australian republic a laughable dud

The chair of the Australian Republic Movement has found a ludicrous new way to make our current bureaucratic nightmare worse, writes Piers Akerman.

In the newspaper business this time of year was historically known as the silly season. Covid has heightened the usual sense of inactivity with businesses pretty much shut down, people on vacation or in hiding from the China virus, it’s the silly season on steroids.

Novak Djokovic’s dilemma has added an element of international scandal to the usual sporting coverage which would normally be focusing on Tasmania’s first Ashes Test and the Australian Open. Then along came Bozo, Peter FitzSimons, whose inchoate ramblings appear in a rival newspaper as he offers his ill-informed opinions on religion and the law and the lifestyles of the rich and famous he and his TV celebrity wife, Lisa Wilkinson, rub shoulders with in their multimillion dollar North Shore haven.

Author and commentator Peter FitzSimons’ latest column has sparked frustration. Picture: Mark Wilson

After two years of being told by experts how to screw up our lives and give up personal freedoms and tear up the Constitution to give bureaucrats a free rein, FitzSimons has unveiled a model for an Australian republic to replace our current and enviably functional constitutional monarchy. (At least it would be better functioning if Labor premiers believed we were all in this together and upheld the free passage and free trade elements of the Constitution which saw state borders all but disappear.)

This new so-called hybrid model would see each state and territory parliament nominate an individual, with the federal parliament selecting three, with the names to be put to a national election with the winner serving a five-year term. That’s eleven names on a ballot for the Australia’s head of state, when currently the governor-general is selected after due consideration by the prime minister of the day.

Governor-General of Australia David Hurley commenced the role in 2019 after being nominated by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Supplied

If you think this is nuts, you’re not alone. The plan might have been designed by former Labor shadow minister Barry Jones who produced an extraordinary flow chart depicting more than 20 interconnected bubbles which together formed the basis for Opposition leader Kim Beazley’s Knowledge Nation policy.

Noodle Nation is today an Asian food franchise and the spaghetti diagram has long been binned. In announcing his fantasy, FitzSimons, the chair (maybe missing a few legs now) of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) told the Herald, for which he writes, “this is a model ready to go that’s got the finest legal minds in the country behind it”.

The Australian Republic Movement, chaired by Peter FitzSimons, has proposed a new parliamentary system. Picture: Mick Tsikas

That should have been a warning to all. FitzSimons hasn’t a clue about the law as he repeatedly revealed with his abominable remarks as he encouraged his followers to pursue a witch hunt throughout the course of Cardinal George Pell’s scandalous ordeal at the hands of the Victoria Police, the Victorian DPP and the Victorian Appeal Court – all of whom FitzSimons lauded until the High Court delivered its scathing opinion on the verdict.

Not one of the usual anti-British, anti-Australian black armband cheer leaders for a republic has yet voiced full hearted support for the FitzSimons disaster with even his fellow veteran of the cause Thomas Keneally and founding chairman of ARM offering a sort of Yes Minister-like murmur “I’m delighted they’re trying though”.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II signs the Parliament House visitor's book in 1992 as then Prime Minister Paul Keating (L) looks on. Picture: AFP

Former Labor PM Paul Keating shredded the proposal and highlighted the massive shift in power it would represent.

“With the power of a popular mandate, a new president would render subordinate all other officers of state, including the current office of prime minister and that of cabinet,” he told the Herald, which moved the story from its place of page one prominence on Thursday back to page 7 by Friday.

As a failed model, FitzSimons’ humbug is on a par with the Edsel, a brand of car Ford notoriously marketed between 1958 and 1960, a total dud described as overhyped, unattractive and low quality (which might describe FitzSimons’ effort) before junking it at a cost of US$2.19 billion in 2020 currency.

Liberal Party voters, who support the current system in the main, should be asking why Mackellar MP Jason Falinski, who chairs Parliamentary Friends for an Australian Republic, and apparently was a part of a two-year consultation, just didn’t pull the chain on this garbage and leave FitzSimons and his woke warriors to their arrant silliness.