Former Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz lifts the lid on his next career move
Former Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz has lifted the lid on a new role after failing to win re-election in May. His latest conservative campaign >>>
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Former Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz will lead the national campaign against a republic, saying he doesn’t believe Australians’ feelings on the matter have changed since the majority voted ‘no’ in a referendum more than two decades ago.
Mr Abetz’s appointment as the chair of the Australian Monarchist League’s campaign comes after he failed to win re-election in May, following a 28-year career in the Senate.
The 64-year-old conservative told the Mercury his new role would involve co-ordinating the anti-republic campaign in every state, territory, and electorate in the country, and that he had been encouraged to take on the job by people he held in “exceptionally high regard”.
Mr Abetz was a close confidante and ally of former prime minister Tony Abbott, who was the leader of the No campaign in 1999, and served in his cabinet.
“As we look around the world, out of the five most stable democracies, four of them are constitutional monarchies,” Mr Abetz said.
“There is, from my perspective, a very strong rationale for maintaining that which has worked so well, and to keep the government honest in relation to their use of taxpayer funding (on the republican cause).”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appointed NSW MP Matt Thistlethwaite as Assistant Minister for the Republic, signalling the federal government’s potential plans for another referendum.
Mr Abetz said he would seek to be a “counter voice” to Mr Thistlethwaite and was adamant that public sentiment regarding the question of whether Australia should become a republic remained unchanged since the 1999 referendum, which saw 54.87 per cent of Australians vote ‘no’.
“When people stop and think and say, ‘Wait a minute, what are we changing for and why?’, there is actually no objective rationale to do so,” he said.
Australian Monarchist League national chair Philip Benwell said Mr Abetz would “bring to the monarchist cause the same fighting spirit that has characterised his entire political career for nearly three decades”.
The Prime Minister has ruled out campaigning on the issue of a republic referendum at the next election, declaring the government’s priority is the already announced referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
“I am a republican, as is the Labor Party platform, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t respect the extraordinary 70 years of service that Queen Elizabeth II has given to Australia and to the Commonwealth as our head of state,” Mr Albanese said in June as the Queen commemorated her platinum jubilee.
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