Citizens of Australia, can you really be bothered with this whole republic business?

AUSTRALIA stands to lose big time if we cast off Kate, Wills and Queen Lizzie. This is why we can’t become a republic.

LOOK, I don’t know about this becoming a republic thing. It sounds like a lot of effort.

How can we maintain our international reputation for being tanned, lightly racist larrikins if we start actually giving a stuff about things?

Especially tomorrow, when we’re supposed to be drinking beer, eating animals that are native to Australia like lamb, and ignoring the fact that we’re celebrating bulldozing the indigenous backyard 228 years ago?

Sure, the monarchy is mostly irrelevant to everyone except women’s magazine editors and the fur garment industry, but do we really have to go through the official process of getting rid of them? Can’t we end it like some relationships, and just stop responding to the Queen’s texts until she gets the message?

Mind you, Malcolm Turnbull reckons we should wait until the end of Elizabeth’s reign before we do anything about becoming a republic, so at least we have twelve or thirteen thousand more years to think about it. From all evidence, she may never hand in her notice. The Queen is essentially the Keith Richards of Buckingham Palace.

Plus with Quentin Bryce already stepping down as governor-general, who will be our patron saint of perfectly matched outfits if we lose the Queen as well? Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Think about it, though. If we can’t be bothered to improve conditions for refugees, take real steps to reduce domestic violence, and basically treat everyone who lives here like they’re proper human beings, how can we be expected to address far more weighty and important issues like how our head of state is chosen?

I can hardly sleep at night worrying about the difference between having an Australian head of state nominated by the prime minister and an Australian governor-general nominated by the prime minister, and how it will forever change our lives.

It’s just not practical, citizens. Look at some of the things we’d have to do, all of which require actual, proper effort.

We’d have to change the PICTURE on the MONEY. So we’d need to either mint some new coins, or provide a Sharpie to every Australian so they could change it themselves. And if the artistic anatomical depictions in the toilets at every pub in the country are anything to go by, Australians cannot be trusted with permanent markers.

Plus we’d have to change the name of about a third of those pubs, because they’ve been named after monarchs or princes or just called “The Royal”. In order to change the signs out the front, they might have to CLOSE THE PUBS FOR A MORNING. Are we ready for that kind of upheaval? We’d also have to change the name of Her Majesty’s Theatre, which could disrupt the routine of literally tens of Australian theatregoers.

We’d have to find children other than Their Royal Tininesses George and Charlotte to knit for and have ovarian spasms over, when we can be bothered to knit or have spasms at all. I mean, Australia gave newborn Charlotte a merino blanket as a gift. It would be an insult to the entire wool industry to just give her the flick like yesterday’s Dick Smith gift voucher. She could be queen in 60 or 70 years, at which time that blanket would become an impossibly soft and durable symbol of shame and embarrassment.

This guy. Prince George has been dubbed ‘The Republic Slayer’. Picture: AFP Photo/HRH Duchess of Cambridge.

We’d have to find someone else to put on the cover of magazines, too, or at least those magazines we have left. Do we really want to be responsible for bringing more Kardashian magazine covers into the world? We may have to nominate a homegrown royal family to avoid that happening. My strong preference is for the Hemsworths over the Rineharts, Abbotts or Irwins.

We’d lose the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Read that again. We would lose. A long. Weekend. It’s difficult finding Australians who could be bothered walking to the local primary school at midday to vote in a referendum about becoming a republic. But threaten those same Australians with fewer longs weekends per year, and they’ll happily get up at 5am to riot.

Do we have to do something official? Can’t we just treat the monarchy like children in detention and the rights of gay people and ignore them? It’d be much easier, and save a lot of time. Come on. We’ve got cricket to watch.

Jo Thornely doesn’t get enough attention at her day job, so she writes for various outlets, takes up way too much bandwidth on the internet, and loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her @JoThornely