THE CASE FOR The oh\ious consequence of what has just been said is. that in order to maintain this pri~ilegedposition. a way must be found BECOMING A REPUBLIC somehow to keep this group homogeneous and their position unassailable. The method employed is the creation of a state by PETER CONSANDINE, National Convenor, culture based on the British monarchy and Anglo-Celtic culture Republican Party of Australia (R.P.A) but excluding any other culture or segment of society. and PAUL URBAN, Vice President, New Australian Republican Partv (N.A.R.P.) This situation is ven capably described by Mr. J.V D'Crur. Senior Lecturer in Education at La Trobe University in his essa) "Public Culture. Multiculture" Republicanism. as a concept. is quite difficult todeiine as it means different things to different people. Avowed Republicansdibagree "Let us not kid ourselves that Australia constitutes an as to definition. but essentially. model Republican systems of undifferentiated cultural whole and. at the most. with parts tio\,ernment entail the election. by the people of the countr! shaded in barely distinguishable hues: that never was the concerned. ol all political representatives including the Head or situation and is not so now. Multiculturalism. in Australia. has Heads of State to be viewed from a different angle and its constituent elements. those of ethnicity and the public culture in Australia. lhis I\ not the case in Australia. Our system is a Constitutional have to be more clearly distinguished. Ethnicity. like class and Monarch! Our isjointly the British Monarch and gender. is beginning to represent a significant challenge to the at this luncture she ib Queen Elizabeth the Second. Between \.isits increasing dominance of a bureaucratising and homogenising 01 Her Maje\t\ to Australia she is represented. on all official public culture. i.e. the scrubbed-up and abstracted version ol occasions. b> the Governor-General. The former is an anointed the older Anglo-Australian culture. Indeed. as the numericall! and hereditar! position whilst the latter is an appointed position. ethnic component of the Anglo culture shrinks in Australia. its rhe Australian people have absolutely no say in the matter \dues have metamorphosised and found a new lease of life in H hatsoever and through the bureaucratic public culture, thus giving the Australian public culture a particular. ethnically partisan. rhe Queen of Australia is a most intelligent. charming and proper Anglo character. which is why the Australian public culture is person and a lot of Australians regard her with muchaffection, as not equi\,alent to the more inclusive notion of multicultural- the! are happy she is the country's monarch. However, the fact is: ism. And a challenge has arisen because. with the decline of \he 15 foreign. i.e of another nationality. She pays no taxes into bodies like the institutionalised churches and the unions. the 4ustralian Consolidated Revenue and by virtue of her ethnic groups. especially those which are also strong faith- birthright and status. she alienates hundreds of thousands of true communities. still act as life-sustaining resenoirs of significant 4ustralran citizens whether they be native-born or naturalised. meaning for people"

Retention 01' the British Monarch in our system of government *Like it nor not. Australia is a bundle of 'wholes': the public maintains Britishness to a great degree. The English language culture represents the whole which is the nation-state. while dominates but therewith also does the British culture. This. in the ethnic groups in Australia represent the cultural wholes ol man! ways. denies the multicultural strands and componetn of their respective members. The public culture emphasises the the countr!,. Further. it fails to allow the natural percolation and wtder associational grid and some of the processes of living In blending oT the multifarious ethnicity. the Australian nation-state based on the values. such as equality. autonom). democrag.. of a reincarnated 'Sk~pp! Culture, namely the Anglo-Celtic-but-more-Anglo-than- Mult~culturalismand republicanism have always walked hand in Celtic ethnic culture. which. in its finest moments. has hand m Australia's short LOO years of history of European settle- historically uelcomed to its shores (given the right ment Australia has always been multicultural from the time of pigmentation. at times) the later voluntar! and rnvoluntar! the First Fleet. Latest confirmation of this historical fad comes immigrants. asking only that they respect the rights of others in Irom the Hon. Barrie linsworth. Premier of New South Wales, on the exercise of their own. Ethnicity refers to distinctive groups 9th October 1987 when he said to a reception of members of the in a nation-state which emphasise transgenerational ( roatian community: "Could we have finished the Snowy commonalities of symbolic meanings that are kept alne b! Mountains Scheme without those of Croatian background'? self-sustaining social actions. Not surprisingly. ethnic group bould Broken Hill still have been the national asset it became are highly insulted when they are referred to as mere parts ol urthout !.our assistance'! No. Australia has always been multi- another whole. namel) as parts of the public culture" cultural. from the da!,s of the First Fleet" The issue of monarchy has an opposite interpretation in the [hi\ admitted historical truth sits \-er!. uneasily with the .Angle-Celtic state culture compared with the ethnic cultures. in mis~nlormationdeliberately propagated by those groups whosc the state culture the monarch. as personified b! the British interest was. and IS.to make Australia look Br-itish. &Australia is monarch. is seen as a non-political. unifying institution. just as it W(, British" screamed the headlines in 1937. the 150th wah. allegedly. ~n the days of the : in the ethnic annnersarl, 01' European settlement in Australia. One need not cultures the British monarch in Australia is seen as the symbol of d~g\er\. deep to find those groups whosc interests lie in making divisiveness. a symbol and mainstay of the privileged establish- .\u\tralia look a pro-Brit~shestablishment: obviously they are ment. Statistical figures indicate that 75Ci of Australians born in thme who came. In the first instance. themselves or their parents the LK. are in favour olthe monarchy with a Governor-General. or grandparent,. from where the British establishment pre~ailed. uhile only 30C, of Australians born In Europe favour the maid!. from the l'nited Kingdom. It is not very difficult to see the monarchy (page 17 Monarchy to Republic by George reaon behind this attitude either. Membership of the Britr\h Winterton) and fully two-thirds of non-British European migrants ~.\t.ihli\hmententitles a member to a pri~ilegedposition in society. favoured a republic (page 14 Monarchy to Republic by George In polrtics. in the public service. in the judiciary, in the armed Winterton). Itme\. in the drplomatic corps. and so on. where identification uith the ruling rnterehth becomes important. A wcured good life To justify a republican mo\ement and to look at the social force\ tor a pri\ ~lcgcdgroup and their dcscendant5 IS a distortion of maintaining such a movement and their future. anot her quotation h~\~or\ ib olfered from "Public Culture. Multiculture" 'The hope that ethnicity would cease being a 'divisive' ~ndirectly. indicate that Her Majesty IS a veq political person Influence within the nation-state by a merger with the more unequivocally generalised Anglo-Australian 'Skippy' culture as one follows the history of parallel ethnic groups in North America which It 1s long overdue this need In Australia to remove the have refused to be generalised or merged or assimilated or and replace it with a Constitutional absorbed or melted down. Before public culture was. ethnic Republic. At the very least, the issue should. in a fully-fledged cultures are: as indeed. before church and nation-state were. way. be put to a referendum at the first opportunity. bv the the family IS" Australian Government.

"If the emergence of what Professor Brien Crittenden refers to A Short Reading MIIReference List as "a common distinctive Australian culture" is both desirable Encounters with the Ausrralian Comlilulion, by Michael Coper and possible to achieve. indeed it would have to be broader (CCH Australia Ltd) than the minimalist publicculture on which thecohesion ofthe political order depends. and. further. through a process Monarchy to Republic: Australian Republican Govenunent. b! spanning generations. ~twould have to constitute an amalgam George Winterton (Oxford University Press) of the ways of life of the indigenous Aborignal peoples. the earlier ethnic groups of AngloCeltic origins as well as their The End of Kings: A Hbrory of Republics and Republican\. b\ more recent metamorphosised bureaucratic form. and those William R. Everdell (The Free Press MacMillan Inc., ethnic groups. which at later dates. gravitated to Australia in numbers t'rom Asia. the South Pacific Islands. the Americas. The Ausrraliam: In Search of an Idenrirr.. by Ross rerr~ll the Middle East. Europe and Africa. The omissions of any (Bantam Press) ilgnificant one or a number of those groupings would raise the question ot ho~truly distinctive. common and Australian princes^ Di. The Nalional Dbh, by Diana Slmmonds (Pluto would be the res~dualcultural mix- Press)

I-he Constitut~onalMonarchy patently denies the obvious and Ausrralia and Argenlina: On Parallel Palh, by Tim Duncan and prevents Australia developing, in this particular region of the John Fogarty (Melbourne University Press) world. as a mature. independent country. Indeed. many of our Immediate trading partners. consider Australia to be an inferior Public Culrure. Mul~inrlrure.by J .V d'Cruz ( Hawthorn Press I even colonialised nation as we seem, to them, ill-prepared or non- prepared to 'stand on our own collective two feet". as it were. This Towarh Comrirurional Reform and 1988, an audiocassette k~t then can be clearly limiting in terms of Australia realising its dealing with all aspects of Australian Republicanism. b! Peter economic export potential. as well. Consandine. Compiler. Moderator and Producer for Exec Tape Productions this kit is available through the R.P A at $29 What 1s lamentable 1s the knowledge that we don't have a (sales tax excluded) plus postage and handling. discernible Australian Identity This would. over time. evolve under a Republican system. Ausrralian Republicamim, an audio-visual k~t.complete with documentation. on Multicultural and Republican Australia b! Vany thinkmg Australians (monarchists included) believe that the Coalition of Republican Organisations In Australia 4ustralia Inevitably will become a Republic. It IS therefore a available from the R.P.A. at$25(sales tax excluded) plus postage matter ot n~hennot if. It follows that Australia and Australians and handling. \hould be startlng to address the issue of theappropriate model or lorm of the Australian Republican system. For. in a world of From Stare 10 Free-Slale: The Meaningoflhe Word'Republrc. m Republics. there are many different types of Republican Weslern Europe and America from Jean Bodin 10 John Adams. a btructures treatise on the whole concept of 'republicanism" by William R Everdell available from the R.P.A. at $12 plus postage. l he R. P A, and the N.A.R.P. believe that possibly a system which comprises man) of the aspects of the American. French and Swiss Republican Party of Australia Republican svstems would be close to Australia's requirements. P.0 Box 343. Strathfield. N.S.W 2135. Phone: (02) 642 4552

Van) monarch~sts maintain that retention of the British New Australian Republican Party Monarch has a unifying and stabilising influence on us. What 1 Smail Street. Broadway. N.S.W. 2007. Phone: (02) 212 6668 happened In the British Constitutional Monarchy of in 1987 glves the lie to this view. Many Australian historians now allude to the ('onstitutlonal Crisis in Australia here in November 1975 and refer to the resolution of the crisis, per se. as by "constitutional coup d'etat"

\nother argument that monarchists bandy about is how much the British Monarch does for Australia. Well. arguably. she promotes British industry. trade and tourism but she does none of these things tor Australia. A little known fact is just how much it actualll costs Australians to maintain theanachronistic links with the British Croun currently. it amounts to $225 million. per annum.

4dditionalll. It 14 advanced by Royalists that Q.E.ll is 'above the \agaries of politlo" The known differences between the British Monarch and the British Prime Minister over British Foreign policy. as expressed through the Buckingham Palace Press Oflice