If they weren’t busy washing their hair, watching paint dry or rubbing lard on the cat’s boil, more Australians would have got along to the small soiree in Canberra earlier this month to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the failed republican referendum.
The event was entitled “Ten years on, it’s time to mend the nation’s heart”, taking its cue from Malcolm Turnbull’s pointed referendum night sledge against his eventual boss, Prime Minister John Howard, over his allegedly sinister role in skewering the yes vote.
A small ceremony was held on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra – Canberra being a terrifically appropriate choice as, from all the states and territories, the ACT was on its own in voting yes - where a statement was read urging both sides of politics to revisit the case for constitutional change.
If they weren’t busy washing their hair, watching paint dry or rubbing lard on the cat’s boil, more Australians would have got along to the small soiree in Canberra earlier this month to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the failed republican referendum.
The event was entitled “Ten years on, it’s time to mend the nation’s heart”, taking its cue from Malcolm Turnbull’s pointed referendum night sledge against his eventual boss, Prime Minister John Howard, over his allegedly sinister role in skewering the yes vote.
A small ceremony was held on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra – Canberra being a terrifically appropriate choice as, from all the states and territories, the ACT was on its own in voting yes - where a statement was read urging both sides of politics to revisit the case for constitutional change.
“We are asking our political leaders to mend the aching rift in our nation’s heart,” the ARM gushed in its November 6 communique.
Rather than breathing new life into the republic, all this event seemed to do was underscore its deadness.
Not just because both sides of politics are currently led by men who, while committed republicans, have no desire to launch a politically risky quest to resuscitate the issue.
But because it showed that the republican movement remains prone to chronic holier-than-thou introspection, with its maudlin woe-is-us account of that apparently fateful evening in 1999, where the dreams, hopes and aspirations of us all, blah-di-blah-di-blah, were shot down by obstructionism and obfuscation from opponents of change.
Not only is it an excuse-making version of history, it is a desperately uninspiring call for those of us who would love to see the issue revisited with new energy and new vigour.
If this is to happen, the Republican Movement must get itself about a million miles away from the elitist tone which marred the yes campaign. That tone was best evidenced by the rotten decision to make Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam the public faces of a “do as we say” advertising campaign, framed lamely around the tired “It’s Time” line, despite the fact that many Australians have negative memories of both men or, in the case of younger Australians, no memories of them whatsoever.
Turnbull’s claim that Howard had broken the nation’s heart drew an appropriately bombastic line under a campaign that had been long on dramatic overstatement.
In fairness to Turnbull it was really just one of those silly things that people say in the heat of the moment.
And it was quite the moment too. In a depressing double, a few of us from The Daily Telegraph had to report on the parties thrown by both campaigns on the night of the referendum, and it’s a struggle to say which was worst.
The republicans were at the Marriott on Hyde Park and it looked like some kind of parody of a David Williamson play, full of old lefty stagers who were complaining bitterly to anyone who would listen about that rat bastard Howard. Adding to the theatrical vibe was the fact that every actor in Australia appeared to be there; the first thing we saw on arriving was a sobbing Rachel Ward being comforted by Bryan Brown. The only fun bit was seeing Bob Hawke interviewed by a BBC journalist who prefaced his question saying: “Mr Hawke, you are still regarded as one of the most popular and successful prime ministers in Australian history…” to which Hawkey replied with trademark humility: “Yep.”
But down the road at the Sydney Convention Centre it was an absolute carnival of Tory weirdness. Glazed North Shore ladies who appeared to have tied their heads on with pearls, draped in fox fur and pashminas, men in cravats and blazers who looked like Quentin Crisp, people waving not just Australian but British flags, and everywhere, vicious young Liberals whose eyes were a little bit too close together, who upon seeing you holding a notepad would spit venom saying “You lost! The media lost!”
Seeing all these crusty monarchists having such a jolly time of it was kind of heart-breaking. But as a broader statement about the national psyche in the aftermath of the vote, the heartbreak line was and remains incorrect.
It was wrong in political terms. Sure, there was a bit of rat-cunning from Howard, with the addition of the preamble question and the argument surrounding its contents confusing the more fundamental issue.
But in essence, all Howard did was put and win an argument, namely that the current system had served us well and there was no need to risk a change. And the sense of risk was given maximum amplification by the republicans themselves, through their Judean People’s Front carry-on as they squabbled long and loud over the model.
But the worst thing about Turnbull’s line about our supposedly heart-broken nation wasn’t that it misrepresented the politics – but that it misread the people.
If Australia was heartbroken, it was probably only heartbroken until about 11.30am the following day when it remembered it had friends coming over for a barbecue.
Our natural and commendable ambivalence towards political activism means that 99.9 per cent of Australia dusted itself off and returned to its business.
None of us are heartbroken that we are stuck with our archaic and ridiculous constitutional arrangements. At its most dramatic, we’re slightly irritated by them.
Our Queen is like some kitsch wedding present that sits there on the mantelpiece in a vaguely annoying way, which you nevertheless keep for years through a combination of sentiment and politeness.
Even Prince Charles said recently that he is puzzled as to why Australia chose to remain a constitutional monarchy. If our next King is confused we all should be too.
It’s the Royals who should be the best advertisement for republicanism going around. The ARM was too polite by half ahead of the 1999 vote, saying it didn’t want to play the man. But in the minds of many Australians, this unusual family is the very embodiment of what’s wrong with our constitutional arrangements, which offend our instinctive national belief in meritocracy, our hatred of pomp and ceremony, of class, of tradition for tradition’s sake.
Charles musing about why we’re not a Republic; lesser Royal Zara Phillips ponsing around The Bird Cage at Flemington, the Duke patronising some foreign johnny at CHOGM - these are the sorts of images which would make a much more compelling campaign than Mal and Gough sitting on a sofa giving us all a lecture, and could help drive younger Australians to action for change.
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