Patrick Carlyon: There will be no republic until Australians are inspired to care

The new minister for “the republic” will seek to reignite a lofty debate that means little to regular Australians with bills and mortgages to pay.

The Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations will be inescapable in coming days. Picture: AFP

Does the Albo government know something that the rest of us do not?

For decades, there has been agreement that the question of an Australian republic best lies dormant until Queen Elizabeth passes away.

Yet Albo’s new cabinet features an assistant minister for “the republic” we do not have.

Matt Thistlethwaite will seek to reignite a debate long shelved as a lofty abstraction that means little to anyone who pays bills and mortgages.

He will pursue answers we didn’t know we yet needed.

We could tinker with the constitution here. Perhaps appoint a president – or “elder”, as has been suggested – there.

Yet the republic did not merit a talking point during the world’s longest and most boring election campaign.

Odder still? The Queen is still with us. Her platinum jubilee celebrations will be inescapable in coming days.

There has been agreement that the question of an Australian republic best lies dormant under Queen Elizabeth’s rein. Picture: Getty

“It’s time we start ... looking to have one of our own as our head of state, to recognise that independence and maturity going forward,” Mr Thistlethwaite said.

A good starting point might be to chuck out the 25-odd years of blather we’ve already had.

Malcolm Turnbull has been an eloquent voice. He said the failed 1999 referendum, as orchestrated by then prime minister John Howard, “broke a nation’s heart”.

But many Australians don’t like Turnbull.

The republic movement needs to move on from its tired old campaigners like Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP

Journalist Peter FitzSimons has also led the Australian Republic Movement.

Both he and Turnbull can invite reflexive resistance, a kind of “if they care, then I won’t” response.

They wear scars of public judgment that neither bandannas nor leather jackets can disguise. Neither commands a broad constituency.

If a republic model is to fly, the faces for change must change. The movement must shed its elitist whiff. Ageing veterans of a failed cause must be nudged into obscurity.

The mechanics – and the need for them – must be understood and embraced. There can be no republic until Australians are inspired to care about the detail.

So why try to engage them when affection for the Queen, in all her enduring frailty, is about to peak?

Queen biographer Robert Lacey wrote about Prince Philip’s response to the 1999 referendum. “What’s the matter with these people?” he apparently said.

“Can’t they see what’s good for them?”

Prince Philip was right. And the supporters of a republic will, inevitably, fall on the right side of history.

But shouldn’t they have waited until the Queen herself is an adored figure from the past?