Looking to own head of state
As their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, set about earning their keep they might pick up a few consultancies with republican movements in former dominions of the defunct British empire.
Beyond the second Elizabethan age, swearing allegiance to a foreign head of state would be an anachronism.
Given previous fiascos in attempting to move to an Australian head of state, it is time to think about the necessary processes, for the future.
Hypocritical as they are in lecturing the world on climate change while living the high life on private jets, Harry Mountbatten-Windsor and Meghan Markle have recognised something that has eluded too many conservatives in Australia for too long. That is, in the third decade of the 21st century, hankering after an institution with ranks such as Silver Stick-in-Waiting — the deputy to the Gold Stick-in-Waiting — cannot be taken seriously.
If that is the feeling in Frogmore Cottage, located in the grounds of Home Park, Windsor, in Royal Berkshire — renovated at a $4.6m cost to British taxpayers — it is far more pertinent 20,000km away in Australia.
Compared with a few years ago, excitement among younger Australians over the emergence of the younger generation of royals, especially the Cambridges and the Sussexes, has well and truly dissipated.
The institution could not be more irrelevant to modern Australia. And now the Sussexes no longer want to play along with the pantomime.
Even before their announcement, the institution was floundering after what the Queen, in her Christmas message, described as a “quite bumpy year’’.
That was one way of summing up Prince Andrew’s banishment from royal life amid allegations of under-age sex arising from his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But that is the royals’ problem, and Britain’s problem.
It’s time for Australians to think about our own future and interests.
Prince Harry and his bride have dispatched with the royal family and once his grandmother leaves the throne, so should we.
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