Wake up to a republic
Wake up to a republic
The idea of a republic in Australia has been hidden from public view, preventing it from naturally developing into what it could truly become
The Queen’s 70th jubilee clashed oddly this year with the 30th anniversary of Eddie Mabo’s historic overturning of ‘Terra Nullius’, highlighting the juxtaposition of who we are and who we need to be. The former seemed ever so far away and insignificant in the light of the latter. The stalled progress and the missed opportunities to forge our national identity with our country’s oldest inhabitants, to set straight the damage of the past, to close the gap, to listen to recognize the ‘Statement of the Heart’, all of it seemed further away than ever.
Our news services gave more airtime to Habsburgian remnants standing on balconies on a crumbling island in a failed empire, than dedicating time talking about the significance of Mabo and what he achieved. The public broadcaster joined the rest of them in giving us a holographic QEII waving from a carriage, and we fell back asleep by the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. It seemed like a good time to talk about becoming a republic.
Whitlam’s visit to China, the flotillas and fireworks on Sydney Harbour for the bicentenary in 1988, the East Timor intervention -- for a while it still seemed we were continuing along the arc of our national trajectory, however imperfectly, as a forward thinking, respected middle power that spoke a voice of its own, meeting the issues of the past with honesty. It didn’t last so long.
Queue the narrow defeat of the 1999 Australian republic referendum, bogged down in its own identity crisis, between the Alan Jones lawn bowls club silent generation and the geopolitical realists. The green and gold boxing kangaroo stickers on my grandfather’s burgundy ‘89 Magna contrasted with the conflict among republicans themselves. It became apparent that the movement lacked cohesion. The Howard government largely supported the status quo, as did some in the pre-internet news apparatus, and it made the difference.
As we slipped into the new millennium, it was clear that things were changing under the second term of the Howard Government. We weren’t getting much talk about the republic from our leaders anymore, and by the time Cathy Freeman lit the torch at Sydney 2000, something felt different. Children overboard became the war on terror, into a ethically sleepy mining boom, and all of a sudden, we started locking up genuine refugees, we stopped talking about aid to the Pacific and engagement with ASEAN and Indonesia, and more about Tarin Kowt and purchasing ill-fitting surplus American military equipment.
In the sleepy decade of Howard, he deprived us of a national imagination. We were always partial to the trappings of our distant white friends in faraway places, and without any inspiration from our leaders, we became integrated into an incompatible American dream, while still clinging to the coattails of a crumbling empire in damage control. Both suffer greater domestic challenges than we do.
In the 30 years since Mabo, there has been an apathy bestowed on us by a selfish small-minded leadership, the national imperative has been splintered by economically obsessed politics protecting culturally entrenched private vested interests. We have had decades of governments that have been compelled to ensure economic outcomes, some of them counterintuitive to the interests of many Australians. The major parties have put the Republic on the backburner and it has come at the expense of our common potential as a nation, affecting our own concept of who we are, blinding us to the brilliant possibilities: that we are a 60,000+ years slow-cooked-deep-dish of continuous Aboriginal history topped with a cheesy multicultural crust. Imagine the strength that could be drawn from that?
We have developed a dominion mentality, a legacy of the divide and conquer tactics of colonialism, and it influences the ability of both sides of politics to rationalise a republic. Lacking a public debate and leaders to lead it, colonial institutionalism exists in its resting state, confusing us and devolving our combined potential. This mindset makes us feel inadequate and allows us to cut down our tall poppies, preferring to throw them on top of monolithic war memorials, than to cultivate their grand ideas for the future of our children.
Without the will of our leaders to change the narrative, to work with Australians to build the idea of a republic, our culture, perhaps our destiny have become stuck in an algorithmic tangle with the Anglosphere that hardly knows we exist, defaulting to something that is essentially incompatible. For too long we have moored our culture to a counterintuitive set of cultural ideas across faraway seas, seeing through our nearby neighbors that cry out for us to look at them instead.
The keys to the republic should be held by a group that represents the diversity of the country. By everyone, not a handful of Anglo-Irish based in east coast urban enclaves who may lack the imagination and support required to dream big on something so endlessly beneficial to what we need to achieve together. We need to look to the indigenous heritage of this nation as the cornerstone of the republican movement, to walk alongside the ‘Statement from the heart’, to build the idea on the incredibly powerful roots that ensures a healthy and inclusive vision of what the republic actually means.
The republican movement needs to outline what could be achieved with a republic, to communicate the possibilities, raise public awareness and lobby Canberra to ensure we see a referendum. Forming a republic will have a profound impact on our ability to best navigate an uncertain future as an independent nation that can act in the best national interest. It would provide untold benefits as we engage with our region, both economically and diplomatically, in the Pacific, in Asia, and with our largest military and trading partners in Washington and Beijing.
The moribund Union Jack that sits on our flag, that once saw the sun never set, is now becoming undone within the union itself, around the Commonwealth and within the family of the Crown. Since the time of Brexit we have seen the abdication of Prince Harry, the horrible saga involving the disgraced Prince Andrew, even some of the small island dominions expressing discomfort in having to chair lift the vapid Prince William in ceremonies that they reserve for deities. Things are changing and so should we.
Within Britain, internal polling sees the stripes peeling off the Union Jack. Sinn Féin holds the most votes in Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh nationalism is stronger than ever, Jamaica and Barbados have thrown independence celebrations with Prince Charles – why are we naming an island in Lake Burley Griffin after the Queen in this year of 2022?
The flag that flew over America sparking the war of independence, over Hong Kong during China’s century of shame, the standard that flapped on banners engaged in slavery, plunder and organised acts of human cruelty across the planet, no longer deserves a place on ours, in fact, its presence prevents Australia from grasping its future. With fresh inspiration to draw from in recent and successful independence campaigns in former colonies it is time for a decent conversation on the republic involving the entire nation, fostered by leadership and imagined by a reformed republican movement. The time is now.
No doubt Howard was largely responsible for the failure of the 99 republic referendum, what with his usual divide-and-conquer strategy, but he was also lucky to strike a gold-standard Fizza as his opponent. A Fizza newly-uber-rich from his infamous OneTel investment, who would survive to fail Australia twice more (Utegate, NEG) before leaving us prey to one of the worst governments in Australia's history.