Thank you, thank you all!
It was wonderful news this week for the Australian Republican Movement – which I chair – to hear the number of Australians who think we can do better in the 21st Century than find our head of state from a family of English aristocrats living in a palace in London ... is lifting!
Yes’m, according to the highly respected poll put out by the ANU Australian Electoral Study on Wednesday, our numbers have lifted to 53 per cent support, a rise of two points since the 51 per cent recorded by Newspoll earlier this year.
Does that mean we want to go to a referendum next month?
Of course not!
We are not ready yet, and there remains an enormous amount of work to do. But what it does mean is that we are moving in the right direction.
When my wife, Lisa Wilkinson, got the first interview with the PM after he took over from Tony Abbott and asked about the republic, he was clear.
“The Republic issue cannot belong to a politician. It's got to be a genuine popular movement.”
It was a position he affirmed, when speaking at our 25th anniversary dinner at Sydney University last Saturday night, again calling for it to be a popular movement.
Well, the news is, Prime Minister, we are getting there, and it is getting to be a popular popular movement at that!
Among other things, the poll showed that just 12.7 per cent of Australians – just one in eight – “strongly favour retaining the Queen as head of state.”
And 52.5 per cent either strongly favour or favour us running our own show!
Our task now, is to keep going, ideally to get the numbers to 60 per cent, at which point we can be absolutely sure of getting the job done.
We have, I must say, a great case to argue.
When people trot out the old line, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the short answer is, it bloody well is broke when you consider that while our children can aspire to be just about anything they want in this world, there is one position they are specifically banned from: they can’t be head of state.
Why not?
Because that position is reserved for one English family. Come on!
This would is fine for a jumped up colony, but it is totally inappropriate for a dinkum country proud of its sovereignty, who vaunts its values of egalitarianism and the fair go to the world.
If you agree, people my people, please don’t just nod your head sagely.
We need you to engage, to become members, to give us your energy, your ideas, to help push this forward.
Standard membership is $60 a year, but we recently opened up a special category where people can Google our name and join up for just $1 a month.
If you don’t agree, and insist there is no problem with being seen, in the eyes of the world as being incapable of running our own show, can I ask you this?
Do you really have a problem with a movement that asserts nothing more than the right of Australians to have a system, “of Australians, run by Australians, overseen by Australian?”
This is the idea, you have such a problem with?
Please. You will come good, we know it. Ideally, as I said in my speech replying to the Prime Minister’s “this really could be the unifying cause our nation needs, the one to get us away from that oh so tedious and so un-Australian mad march of our current politics – left, right, left, right, left, right – I’m left, you’re right, I hate you and you hate me – and give us something to rally behind, to unite behind, to find common cause with.”
And wouldn’t that be a relief?
The end of the otherwise endless bickering, and actually uniting on something for the common good?
Join us. You know you want to!
Peter FitzSimons is chair of the Australian Republican Movement.
