A growing chorus is calling for Australia’s republic conversation to focus less on symbolism and more on empowering local communities through real structural reform, writes Kaijin Solo.
I don’t want to be dismissive but what growing chorus? Who is even talking about a republic apart from a tiny group of liberal republicans?
Who is even talking about a republic
I’ll talk about it any chance I get. The idea that some foreign dick without any ties to our country is the leader of our country is fucking bogus. The fact that we can have a leader of our country who would back a different country in international sport is insane. Our leader. The confusion around the Palace Papers and whether or not Kerr had acted on advice from the Queen simply should not even be a possibility. The person acting in Australia should do so entirely based on Australian interests and advice from other Australians.
But I’ve never heard about this version of it before. I do quite like the idea. But tying it to a republic is a new one for me.
I do love that they’re pushing back at the idea of council amalgamation. Brisbane has pretty clearly shown how that isn’t the great idea it’s cracked up to be. It allows huge numbers of people in far-off suburbs to outweigh the needs of the people who actually live locally in a given area. Toronto in Canada has shown the same thing. The City of Sydney is a great counter-example. We’re constantly hearing about new initiatives or projects being done under Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s leadership. But if the rest of greater Sydney were able to overrule her and the people of the City of Sydney all that progress would be impossible.
Frankly, I don’t really know why you would tie this to a republic. It’s a good idea. So is becoming a republic. But there’s going to be significant opposition to any referendum, and I don’t want to decrease the chance of at least half of the good ideas being undone because people are significantly opposed to the other one. These should be two, separate referenda.
Not that it matters. After the Voice fiasco, there aren’t going to be any more referenda under Albanese’s leadership. I’m still angry at both the Australian people for their lazy racism, and at Albanese for his obviously flawed tack with that referendum. He needed to be able to present a clear picture of how it would work from day one. Possibly by legislating it and going to referendum after it had been established and people had seen how it can work. Possibly by doing Truth and Treaty before Voice. Possibly just as simple as laying out a proposed framework and hammering home exactly what that would look like from day one of the referendum campaign. Going into it with an unknown was guaranteed to fail.
Fucking aye.
I’ll take every opportunity I can to say this, but we all need to take note of what happened when America overthrew the monarchy. A single system of power leaves us vulnerable to populism, and enables the politicization of the courts.
Nonsense. There is no configuration of state and legislative body that makes any country automatically safe from manipulation by state capturing billionaires or Russian interference. There is a continuous work of education around this that needs doing all the time, and doing it is the only way we won’t be brought down. The monarchy is pretty useless and irrelevant in this. Did they stop the UK from being taken out of the EU by far right populists? You know they did not.
Education is one factor. A diversity of power structures is another. America wouldn’t be in the state it was if the monarchy needed to approve supreme court appointments.
The monarchy didn’t stop the UK from being taken out of the EU, that was a referendum and they’d bring out the guillotines of the monarchs tried to override that. The monarchy doesn’t need to actually intervene to be effective at maintaining stability, the threat of intervention is enough to keep the far-right from trying to overthrow or corrupt elections.
I think the UK system of the hereditary lords in the house of lords is better than the monarchy. A inherited position sitting at the back of democracy that can delay legislation should it be the result of blatant self-interest or populism. The house of lords is closer to a group of average upper class people with clear limits on their role.
Becoming a republic does not necessitate switching to a presidential system or establishing a politicised constitution (which is, in turn, part of what led to America’s activist judiciary).
