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Feature: Australian monarchists prepare for tough battle

In the elegant surroundings of the New South Wales parliament in Sydney last week, some 140 Australian monarchists lunched on roast beef at a celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.

After pudding was served, former minister for foreign affairs Alexander Downer urged the audience to fight plans to make Australia a republic and replace Elizabeth II with an Australian head of state.

“It’s very important that people who believe in the stability and the continuity of our Constitution have the courage to stand up and support it,” he said. “I say courage very advisedly because, I warn you, people who support the present arrangement will be ridiculed.”

Amid the stirring of republican sentiment in Australia, led by the new Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a small but vociferous group of monarchists is equally determined to stick with the status quo.

“A republic is not inevitable, and we are resolved to do all in our power to stop such a thing happening,” said David Flint, a member of the group Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM).

Rudd, an avowed republican, has long been clear about his intentions and the topic re-emerged at last weekend’s 2020 summit in Canberra when 1,000 of Australia’s ‘brightest and best’ took part in a two-day brainstorming session about the country’s future.

According to the government-led group, nearly all supported constitutional change. Monarchists have pointed out they were not invited and that those who did attend the conference were already committed republicans.

“It’s been bloody bedlam since that 2020 rubbish,” said Philip Gibson, an 80-year-old volunteer with the ACM. “I love this country and I don’t want it changing. They want us to become a republic, but they can’t even tell us what kind of republic that would be. There’s 104 republics in the world from America to Zimbabwe — which ones are they going to model us on?”

A recent poll said that 70 percent of Australians want the country to cut its constitutional links with Britain.

While one half of all Australians now record one parent born overseas, the proportion of these born in the UK has declined steadily and now stands at only 14 percent. Africa, India, Indonesia, Singapore and China are the fastest-growing sources of immigrants for the country.

Monarchist supporters, however, say that another recent poll indicated only 45 percent of Australians are in favor of constitutional change and that many people remain undecided or do not care about the issue.

Flint said that many of the new immigrants like the fact that Australia has strong links with Britain.

Philip Benwell, a 59-year-old former merchant banker, is head of the Australian Monarchist League, which numbers about 3,000 members. Like the ACM, Benwell said he and other activists would robustly defend the country’s constitutional status.

“What is the point of overturning something that works perfectly well?” he asked. “We’ve never had a major constitutional crisis, no civil unrest, no assassinations. Republics, as we’ve seen in other countries, lead to tension.”

He said the estimated A$2 billion (US$1.87 billion) that it would cost Australia to rewrite its Constitution would be better spent on healthcare and education.

The plan put forward at the summit is to hold a referendum on the issue during the next election due in 2010, followed by a vote.

Downer has said that having two votes will be confusing for Australians.

Rudd has said a split from the British monarchy is “inevitable,” but that it is not yet a government priority

Monarchists say they will use the intervening period to make sure their message gets across.

“Our mottos are going to be: if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, and if you don’t know, vote no,” Flint said.
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