‘Inevitable’ that Australia will dump Charles, high commissioner Stephen Smith says
Australia will scrap the monarchy even though they are proud to have the King as head of state, new high commissioner says.
Australia becoming a republic and scrapping the monarchy is “inevitable” even though Australians are proud to have the King as their head of state, the country’s new high commissioner has said.
In his first interview since moving to London, Stephen Smith said most British people would be “indifferent” to Australia getting rid of the monarchy and said it would not damage the countries’ relationship.
Mr Smith, 67, insisted Australians were “absolutely” proud to have the King as their head of state. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed that he will attend the coronation on May 6.
“There is a lot of affection and respect for the monarchy in Australia,” Mr Smith said. “That affection and respect hasn’t gone away because of Australia contemplating from time to time what it should do about its constitutional arrangements.”
Nevertheless, Mr Smith, an avowed republican, said it was only a matter of time before the monarchy was abolished. “My personal view is it’s inevitable. But how that’s progressed is entirely a matter for the Australian government of the day,” he said.
The Labor government in Australia is dominated by republicans and the Australian central bank has announced that a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the $5 note will be replaced by a piece of Aboriginal artwork instead of an image of the King.
Albanese, who has long voiced his opposition to the monarchy, choked back tears this month when announcing the terms of a referendum to be held this year that could create a representative body of indigenous people in Australia, something that Mr Smith said was a priority in Canberra.
The vote could pave the way for further plebiscites on other constitutional matters.
“Australia does not have referendums on an all too regular basis,” Mr Smith said. “Whether down the track there is a future referendum associated with Australia and the UK’s constitutional arrangements, only time will tell.”
Mr Smith was previously foreign minister and defence minister under the Labor governments from 2007 to 2013.
Originally from Perth, Western Australia, he came to the UK in 1979 as a student and lived in Whitechapel, east London.
While studying at the London School of Economics, Mr Smith associated himself with the Manifesto group, a moderate group of Labour MPs led by Denis Healey that resisted the party’s leftward drift in the early 1980s.
Some people have drawn comparisons between Mr Albanese, the unflashy Australian who ended a decade of right-wing governments, and Sir Keir Starmer, who will be seeking to do the same in Britain next year.
In recent years the political collaboration has been most evident between the Conservatives and the Australian Liberal Party, which both owe much of their electoral success to the advice of the Australian strategists Sir Lynton Crosby and Isaac Levido.
Most recently Rishi Sunak has adopted an Australian slogan with his pledge to “Stop the boats” in relation to the migration crisis in the Channel.
Alexander Downer, a former leader of the Liberal Party and Mr Smith’s predecessor as high commissioner, is one of those who has encouraged Mr Sunak to adopt Australian-style pushback tactics. He has been chosen by the prime minister to lead a government review of Border Force.
Following the completion of the AUKUS deal, under which Britain and Australia will collaborate to build nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades, and the agreement of British accession to CPTPP, a Pacific trade bloc that includes Australia, the relationship between the two countries appears to be growing closer.
However, the Australia free-trade deal, which allows young people to travel freely between the two countries for up to three years at a time, has drawn criticism from British farmers who question the need to remove tariffs on Australian beef and lamb.
Mr Smith insisted the UK-Australia trade deal was an “unambiguously good thing”.
The Times
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