Republican movement revitalised in Australia
According to a news report in the United Kingdom, the long-standing debates on whether Australia should be turned into a republic is now back on the mainstream political agenda as both PM Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull (above) are avowed republicans.India commemorates Republic Day every year
posted by James Wong Wing-On at 12:00 AM
5 Comments:
The republican movement in Australia started more than a hundred years ago.
There is a legacy of bitterness right from Colonial days of unjust rule by Britain. Formal Independence in 1931 did not end the desire to be completely rid of links to the British Crown.
Malcolm Turnbull is a very unusual Liberal Party Republican. He is rather ahead of his political base.
If Malcim Turbull is usually ahead of the Libs in Australia, then the Libs in Australia must logically be far behind than the people in the fourth-world Nepal.
Errmm..can't really equate the constitutional Governor-Generalship in Australia to the absolute monarchy-theocracy (God King ?) which was being attempted in Nepal.
so, what about the 1776 American War of Independence that was strongly against the 'constitutional' monarchy of Great Britain ?
The original Independence movement in America was about the right to rule themselves - The rallying cry "No taxation without representation".
It snowballed into an outright war for Independence, because it became clear there was no way Britain was going to give them what they wanted peacefully.
Australia has been an independent country for nearly 80 years now, and the British crown exercises no political control in Australia.
It really boils down to whether the symbolic head of state for the country should be an Australian civilian President, or remain the representative of Britain's Queen.
To my mind, it doesn't make much practical difference, one way or another.
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