The BFD | Who Wants to Be a Republic, Now?

It would take a heart of stone not to have been moved by Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Even my son, who recently shrugged at the fuss over the monarch’s death, because “it’s such an outdated system”, sat glued to the ceremony for hours. From the touching personal details, such as the King’s obvious devastation and Prince Edward quietly breaking out a hanky, to the solemn grandeur of the honour guards, it was, as he said, a part of history he couldn’t miss.

He is far from the only person previously indifferent or opposed to the monarchy to be moved to realise just how much a part of our cultural soul a monarch can be. Even politicians for whom a republic is an article of faith are ostentatiously backing away — at least for now.

Ahead of Anthony Albanese’s return to Australia following the Queen’s funeral, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman has rejected calls to open debate over becoming a republic.

As well he might: outside the lunar fringe of the Greens, the idea is about as popular as Meghan Markle at a Windsor Castle garden party. Except, of course, at the ABC… which more or less is the lunar fringe of the Greens, anyway.

Mr Gorman was grilled on ABC Radio National over recent polling that showed only 50 per cent of Australians support King Charles as their head of state.

ABC Australia

Of course, the ABC have cherry-picked a Guardian poll claiming a 50/50 split, because most polls have shown a surge in support for the monarchy. Even nearly 60% of Labor voters support the constitutional monarchy. Even at the start of the year, while the Queen was still a hale and hearty monarch, support for a republic was lowest among Australians aged 18-24. Support for a republic is now at its lowest level since the failed 1999 referendum.

Even staunch republicans are grudgingly admitting that it ain’t broke, so why try and fix it?

I’ve been a republican all my life and voted Yes in the 1999 referendum. I am still a theoretical republican but now find myself in that paradoxical category: republicans for a constitutional monarchy. I would vote No to any republican referendum now. It’s inconceivable, in this time of peak woke madness, that any change to the Constitution could produce something as stable and good as we have now. My monarchism is entirely pragmatic.

I voted Yes in 1999, as well — and in recent years I’ve come to appreciate what a potentially disastrous move it was. I’ve since gone beyond being a “republican for a constitutional monarchy”, to being a constitutional monarchist, full stop.

Not from any great affection for the Royal Family, although some of them seem to be decent enough, and others…

No, it’s the system. As I wrote for Insight last week, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we have.

The royal family and the monarchy are quite different in the UK from in Australia, different constitutionally, culturally and emotionally. Tony Abbott once shrewdly observed that our version of monarchy was superior to the Brits’. We invariably had a good monarch and a good governor-general to act as the final guarantee of our Constitution. As the notional embodiments of state sovereignty, they ensured that no mere politician, or even cause, could ever elevate themselves to personalised sovereignty.

Unlike the Queen, who was thrust onto the throne so young that she’d hardly had a chance to express any public view, Charles has had over 73 years of relative freedom to make his views known. Those have ranged from the faintly daffy to the boringly woke. Hopefully, though, he’s had more than enough time to get it all out of his system.