Why do some countries still have a monarchy, I dont care if its a figurehead thats a waste of taxes.
The real answer to this question is “habit”. The people who drew up the Australian Constitution in the 1890’s thought of themselves as British citizens, even though they were literally making plans for a new nation that would be independent of England. In terms of taxes, I don’t believe Commonwealth membership costs us much - though I’m not super informed on this point. I could be swayed on the matter.
Even as citizens of the new nation of Australia, that generation of Australians still thought of themselves as British, too. It took a few more generations for us to really think of ourselves as purely and exclusively Australian.
If the constitution were being drafted up today, we’d have a serious conversation about whether we’d be a Constitutional Monarchy or some sort of Republic. But, it’s not and we’re not.
There are real advantages to being a member of the Commonwealth of nations. I’m not entirely dissatisfied with the status quo. If we ever do split from the Commonwealth, I’d want to look closely at what is proposed to replace it. I would not for example want our government to end up like what our friends in the USA have.
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While America is certainly a dumpster fire I would argue getting rid of all monarchist influence was one of the few good things it did. Of course over time it went from a progressive country to a regressive country and today a country of reactionaries.
I would argue getting rid of all monarchist influence was one of the few good things it did.
What is the problem with the monarchy? That they’re unelected? Well, neither are the Billionaires who fill that same niche in US politics. Except Billionaires have a strong agenda and really drive the popular and political narrative. Even here, we’re not entirely immune to the influence of the Billionaire class. Only, I find myself at odds with just about everything the Billionaires say. By contrast, the royals rarely engage with politics. When they do, I find myself in agreement with the things they champion more often than not.
I do understand that the royals have a lot of influence on our government. And that when they speak, we’re all but obligated to give them at least an audience. But that brings me back to the previous sentence: I can’t think of anything they’ve said that I took substantive issue with. I say this also as someone who never much liked Charlie. I liked his mum and first wife, though.
This is coming across as me being pro-royal. I’m not really black-or-white on them like that. My own stance is more that I don’t have anything strongly against them - rather than being particularly pro-royal. I won’t cry myself to sleep if Australia cuts ties with the monarchy. But, I’m not marching in the streets seeking that outcome, either.
Im a Anarcho-Syndicalist, I hate government and capitalism
It is historical. We have a reasonably stable political system as does the UK and so our government has evolved through consensus since the restoration of the British monarchy.
Australia slowly but steadily made all the necessary legal changes to become a fully independent sovereign nation but we retained an Australian monarch who follows the same rules of succession as the British monarch. I expect the people who worked to obtain our sovereign independence thought the monarchy would be dealt with next. There was an attempt and it got sunk by a nasty scaremongering campaign. Some of the misinformation still circulates today and it has become part of many people’s beliefs.
We need a massive campaign to educate the population so we can achieve the sort of constructive and sensible consensus that are the hallmark of our successful and stable democracy. Unfortunately both social and mainstream media will promote increasingly partisan and divisive misinformation for their own purposes. I am sure many advocates for reform don’t want to deal with the hyper-partisan negativity and army of cookers that will arise flying monarchist flags. Perhaps if the monarchy is left alone they will disappear up their own arses and make it easier.
It’s more expensive to become a republic at this point. Australia would need a referendum to change the Constitution. The last referendum attempt to become a republic was in 1999 and failed, but cost $66m.
The last referundum in Australia was last year and while the AEC has not fully costed it, I’ve seen one estimate of it costing $450m.
I don’t care what it costs. The idea that one person has the right to rule over others is offensive whether it is symbolic or not.
As far as offensiveness, for me it’s about the same whether it’s one person or a hundred ‘representatives’. In either case they’re all completely alienated from me and what decisions would actually help us.
But on a pragmatic level, we’ve seen what happened to Gough Whitlam so we know this isn’t merely a symbolic monarchist structure. It has a real impact.
$66m is absolutely nothing in terms of the state.
Because they gave us a shitty choice in the vote.
It should have simply been should Australia become a republic Yes/No. The specifics could be reached later.
Instead it specified a specific type of presidential republic appointed by parliament or simply no.
We’re the embarrassment for allowing such atruky repugnant instituiton to continue, to allow such inequality to persisit, not Lidia or Chuck (sucking on the public tit at the expense of many others).
His shitty mum literally oversaw a genocide in Ke lnya and she should have been in jail.
@zero_gravitas He’s not my King, either, Senator. Dog forbid anyone should say it out loud in a ‘hallowed’ space, full of royalist suckups.
Senators are required to make an Oath or Affirmation as follows:
OATH I,…, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles the Third, His heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!
AFFIRMATION I,…, do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles the Third, His heirs and successors according to law.
Regardless of what you think of the monarchy, and whether you think that oath is an outright stupid anachronism, it’s still the oath she took. It comes across as plain poor conduct to act that way while acting in her capacity of Senator.
A coerced oath isn’t an oath worth keeping
A coerced oath isn’t really an oath at all. But Thorpe wasn’t coerced into becoming a senator. She wasn’t forced to run for election. Once elected she wasn’t forced to take an oath. She chose to do those things because she thought it would benefit what she’s trying to achieve.
Now, I’m not pro monarchy, and I’m not against Thorpe advocating for aboriginal sovereignty. But saying “you are not my king” but also having sworn “faithful and true allegiance” to that king just doesn’t sit well together for me.
If the only way to achieve political impact is to swear that oath, then it’s coerced, because the only other option is disenfranchisement
Have you actually watched the oath? You’re acting as if there is some kind of hypocrisy here, like she was perfectly happy at the time and is now contradicting a previous position. But her swearing in was also a form of protest, she intentionally got it wrong the first time around and was quite literally coerced into correcting it by the President of the Senate.
Thank you for posting this. I hadn’t seen it. Not sure how I feel about it - she is clearly uncomfortable making that oath. But, if she’s going to change government from within as she chose to do, she does need to play by the rules. That means yes: swearing in like anyone else and then being the change she wants to see.
Basically, I agree with pretty-much everyone in this thread.
Oath, smoath…
She was elected, he was born to rule. Let’s not get all technical. It’s not as if she had a choice of not including kings. The system is rigged.
I can’t believe anyone is seriously advancing this as a point 😆 But I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and give it a serious response:
If the 1999 republic referendum had succeeded, the government of the day would have advised the monarch to abolish their rule over Australia. Senator Thorpe is simply doing the same thing, albeit in a different way. Sometimes true
friendshipallegiance means telling hard truths.I can’t believe anyone is seriously advancing this as a point
Seriously. That’s the kind of centrist respectability politics that I thought I had left behind on that other site.
Hmmm but did you consider the magical words written down on a sheet of paper 200 years ago by old racists? Hmm? Bet you didn’t, and so chortles you’ve exposed yourself for a fool.
If I indeed think that oath is, as you said, an outright stupid anachronism, then why should I consider it poor conduct to openly reject the oath?
On the other hand, I think it’s the appropriate conduct for anyone who wants to be a political representative of me, because I am an anti-monarchist. I do want my representatives to falsely affirm the oath, only because if they reject it then they can’t represent us in the electoral system. I see no positive meaning in that oath, no honour in upholding it, no hypocrisy in betraying it.
Ahaha oh wait you’re serious.
Anyone stupid enough to bind themselves to such a ridiculous oath is showing poor conduct.
@Echinoderm I’m just seeing this as anachronistic rhubarb…that is showing signs of being the outrage-of-the-week by the shallow meeja (which includes ABC, BBC, etc.), and the gubment…to distract from their execrable stance on Netenhyahu’s atrocities.
No. This is not false equivalence. It is that the Oaths and Affirmations are hypocrisy.
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Get media coverage, like pretty much everything she does. She doesn’t have much power as an independent senator so basically all she can do is try to exist as a cultural figurehead.
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Not if you need to win an election
Sometimes following a principal appears useless. Sometimes symbolism can lead to powerful change.
Ghandi’s march to the sea to ‘make salt’, which was an illegal act under British rule, indirectly led to Indian independence. Long bow, I grant you, but the golden thread is there.
didnt she try block mardi gras earlier this year? Its all about her. Shes got a serious case of “trumpness”. Also known as “elons disease”. Or in the native aussie tongue: “look at moiiiiiiii”
didnt she try block mardi gras earlier this year?
- She was protesting the involvement of police participating in the parade.
and she isnt wrong about that. but the way she went about it made her the center of attention once again. Pathetic.
Fuck the “king”, bloody wanker
Not saying it was right to do, and with the backlash she’ll get it’s the opposite of productive. But I can understand her anger.
The vote to give indigenous people more say was only like a year ago and didn’t pass. (Aware Lidia Thorpe was against it - however her reasoning seems to be that the Voice was a token effort that would allow the faking of progress, and she wanted more real action.)
Even putting it to the vote was kind of letting mostly non-indigenous people decide whether or not indigenous people were allowed a say in stuff that affects them.
Now this guy representing the invaders comes over here all pompous to discuss his ruling of the country, refuses to acknowledge or speak to her, and kind of rubs all that recent sore spot in. It’s hitting multiple trauma buttons and the ignoring is not very respectful to her. So she blew up on the only platform available.
Personally I don’t really think much of Charlie or care about the royal family. I don’t understand the reverence or really think about them.
I wouldn’t mind being independent of England but would really have to educate myself on potential consequences of that and how the transition would go.
Horrible: the most annoying person you know just did something cool as fuck.
Lidia is losing her attention seeking forced edginess. She needs to smear herself in shit while yelling sexist and racist comments or something. We still don’t care.
I don’t know why she gets attention for saying the least controversial thing which is mainstream popular opinion in Australia. Except ofcourse the media is controlled by out of touch regressive monarchist elites who want to lump the rest of us in the crazy bin for wanting a modern independent Australia.
Even Chuck understands he is in caretaker mode.
I think the problem is that mainstream Australian culture, and especially our media, is heavily into respectability politics. They hate anything that upsets the status quo. It’s the same as when people oppose pro-climate protests. They claim to be supportive of the message, but say things like “this protest makes me disagree with you”.
I think it is more about framing. The leading media frame the discussion in biased and emotive terms that then carries over unquestioning into other media, the pub, workplace and social media. Lidia isn’t the only person speaking up for indigenous rights or questioning the monarchy but the others rarely get coverage. Lidia seeks attention and the media uses it for their own purposes and they both get what they want.
The media tells us there is nothing more Australian than disrespect for authority when they are exploiting the ANZAC mythology. What could be more Aussie than a digger not saluting British officers? The media tells us implicitly who can protest and who can’t, who is deserving of a voice and who isn’t and which authorities can be questioned and which can not.
protest that doesn’t disrupt isn’t going to reach anyone.
I was chuffed to hear her on shouting at the twat on BBC.
