Rex Gardner: Visit underlines need for republic
THE republic debate has to be firmly back on the national agenda again following the visit of Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
Opinion
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THE republic debate has to be firmly back on the national agenda again following the visit of Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
Seriously, if our modern nation was to write a job description for the head of this wonderful country, could these two possibly tick the boxes and get on to the short list?
We know the answer. Even staunch monarchists like Senator Eric Abetz can’t pretend the next generation of royals — Charles is 69 and Camilla 70 — actually represent brand Australia in the 21st century.
Charles and Camilla no doubt thought their fleeting visit centred on the Commonwealth Games would cement the monarchy in our country until the next token trip — that we’d lap up yet another boring and predictable whirlwind of handshakes and platitudes.
It probably achieved the opposite, and has revived Australia’s latent, but inevitable, journey to becoming a republic. It is not a matter of if we become a republic, but when.
The great irony is that our Prime Minister and several state governors — the Queen’s representatives, no less — are republicans. As many as four of our six governors may be in favour of Australia becoming a republic.
A significant number of Cabinet ministers are republicans, and a majority of federal MPs favour a republic.
The numbers are evident — the political will for a second referendum is not so evident.
Back to Charles and Camilla, and for starters, their Australian trip was paid for by the taxpayer.
Why, you may well ask, do we do it? This trip could cost about $500,000, with an RAAF trip to the South Pacific thrown in.
The royals arrived last Monday and went straight to the magnificent rural property Deltroit Station, half an hour out of Wagga Wagga. It is owned by a friend of the royals, British-Australian businessman Sir Michael Hintze, described as a billionaire, Brexit-backing hedge fund investor.
On Wednesday, the royals flew out of Wagga Wagga and appeared for official duties in Brisbane and the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. Camilla has been widely criticised for appearing bored during the Games’ opening ceremony. She and the person sitting next to her, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, seemed at times to be on different planets.
The excuse for Camilla’s indifference to the opening ceremony was she was suffering jet lag. Two sleeps and two relaxing days at Deltroit Station would surely be enough for most people to find their feet in another country.
Palace officials issued an extraordinary public statement denying the Duchess was bored, saying she and Prince Charles “thoroughly enjoyed” the opening ceremony, and found it “entertaining and moving”, particularly the indigenous musical performances and the smoking ceremony.
Commonwealth Games Federation president Louise Martin also leapt to Camilla’s defence, saying she worked hard on Wednesday and the biggest break she got was travelling by car from Brisbane to the Games’ opening ceremony.
“When you’re back-to-back like that, coming off a long-haul flight ... she literally hates flying. She really wanted to go to sleep,” Martin said.
By Friday — after just four days Down Under — Camilla faced her demons again and was back in the air on a commercial flight bound for London. So half her time was spent in private circumstances — and about 48 hours spent on official duties. Charles, however, toiled on, travelling to northern Queensland, the Gove Peninsula, Darwin and Vanuatu. The truth is the modus operandi for royal visits hasn’t changed for decades. It is the same tired formula — walk, shake hands, feign affinity, chat and joke, take the flowers and gifts and pass them behind to a minder to dispose of before moving on to the next tree planting, ribbon cutting, hospital visit, Government House reception, and do it all again.
As a young reporter in Melbourne, I covered Prince Charles on tour in Australia in 1970, when street walks to meet the people were being somewhat nervously tried and tested.
They were an instant hit and the public loved them, but since then every royal tour has been predictable.
Probably the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, broke the mould slightly when she toured in alone October 1975 when her marriage to Lord Snowden was crumbling.
I remember the princess relaxing hard on the special royal train travelling through Victoria’s western district, standing at the rear of her elaborate carriage downing a gin and tonic from a large crystal tumbler in one hand and a cigarette in the other — a Du Maurier cigarette from a bright red packet, to be precise.
The republic debate must be one of the biggest “sleepers” in Australia at the moment.
Former PM Paul Keating threw in a fizzer last week when he told London’s The Sunday Times that his clear impression from conversations with Charles when he was prime minister was that “he believes Australia should be free of the British monarchy and that it should make its own way in the world”.
Keating was roundly criticised by monarchists, such as Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz and John Howard.
How long do we have to ignore it? The hypocrisy is there for all to see.
People in power across Australia believe we should stand on our own two feet as a nation. The model of how the republic is still up for debate, but the fact we need to be independent of the mother country is not.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is an avowed republican, who led the Australian Republican Movement when the referendum failed in 1999.
Many of our state governors are known to be sympathetic to the country becoming a republic.
Close to home, Tasmania Governor Kate Warner was a founding member of the Australian Republican Movement, and while she doesn’t comment on her political beliefs, she has said: “From the constitutional law side, I think it is quite irrelevant whether the governor is a monarchist or a republican.”
Newly appointed Western Australian governor, former Labor leader Kim Beazley — who takes over vice regal responsibilities in May — sees no conflict between his staunch republican views and new, highly paid role as the Queen’s representative in the west.
Later this month in London at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the Queen is expected to hand over her responsibilities as head of the Commonwealth to Prince Charles, according to reports from the UK.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will loom larger in our lives, and it is just a matter of time before he is King of Australia.
Camilla has indicated she will use the name “Princess Consort”. She may well be styled as Queen consort, which halfway across the globe will be translated as Queen of Australia. As the republicans say, maybe we need a resident as President.
Rex Gardner is a former News Limited journalist and chief executive of the Mercury.
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