Attempts to trash Queen will fail, warns Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek
Tanya Plibersek says any attempts to disrespect the Queen will destroy the campaign for an Australian republic.
Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek warns any attempts to trash the Queen will destroy the campaign for an Australian republic, as she rejects any theories that Buckingham Palace played any role in the dismissal of former prime minister Gough Whitlam.
Ms Plibersek — the opposition education spokeswoman and a potential future Labor leader — on Wednesday launched The Truth of the Palace Letters: Deceit, Ambush and Dismissal In 1975, written by The Australian’s Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston, in Canberra.
In her speech, Ms Plibersek said the next campaign for a republic must be a positive one which embraces the fight for an Aboriginal Voice to parliament and Australia’s future in the world, and must not make the Queen a “bogey-woman”.
“As republicans, we should celebrate the best of us as a country. Mature, proud, egalitarian, multicultural,” she said.
“Because one thing is clear to me: any campaign that seeks to trash the Queen is destined to fail.
“Even republicans respect the Queen — and will never accept her as a bogey woman.
In the end, we need to make the case for an Australian republic; not the case against the British monarch.”
The release of letters between then-governor general John Kerr and the Queen’s private secretary Martin Charteris earlier this year have sparked a revival of interest in Kerr’s decision to sack Whitlam, with The Australian revealing Prince Charles backed the decision.
Ms Plibersek will say in her launch speech that there is no evidence the Queen herself had any prior knowledge, involvement in, or support for the 1975 dismissal.
“I’ve never been convinced on the Palace’s motives. The Queen has not shown an inclination to meddle in Australian affairs,” she said.
“In fact, the royal family knows that their survival depends on being above politics. So why risk that careful image here?
“We’ve also got the evidence from Paul Keating’s meeting with the Queen at Balmoral Castle.
“This was the meeting when Keating told her of his plans for an Australian head of state — something the Queen accepted calmly, as a decision of the Australian people.
“That doesn’t seem like the behaviour of someone interested in toppling Australian governments.”
Ms Plibersek, however, is unsparing in her assessments of Sir John and former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, saying they were involved in a conspiracy to destroy the first Labor government in more than 20 years.
“I understand the attraction of palace politics and intrigue — but I think it can distract us from the true story here,” she said.
“There was a conspiracy to unseat the Whitlam government. But it didn’t originate in Buckingham Palace … It originated in the office of Malcolm Fraser. And we should never forget it.
“He blocked supply. He sewed the division. In Keating’s words, it was Malcolm Fraser who injected the poison into our political bloodstream. It was an act of bastardry — and it’s never really left us.”
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