In a recent article, “Hereditary heads of state are long out of date”, Barry Everingham undertakes a venomous attack on Prince Charles. Everingham relies upon plain lies, miss-information, and ignores many facts about our constitution.
He claims that whether Australians like it or not, when the Queens reign ends, we in Australia shall be stuck with the Prince of Wales as King. Barry makes it clear that he believes Australians have had no say in this matter, apparently forgetting that in 1999 Australia had a vote on this very issue? And more importantly that majority of Australians voted a resounding NO to Australia becoming a republic, thus showing their support for the Prince of Wales, the royal family, and the most stable constitution in the world.
A favourite line of republicans is that the “King of England” rules over us and we will be stuck with “Queen Camilla”, Everingham is no exception. However the problem with these two phrases is that they are a lie.
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Firstly there hasn’t been a King of England for hundreds of years and secondly Camilla has already stated that she will not take the title of Queen – though the truth never gets in the way of a good story.
Finally Barry stumbles upon a truth, and that is the laws surrounding the act of succession. Everingham rightly outlines the criteria for a monarch to be eligible. The laws state that any contenders to the throne must:
- Be a descendant of the Electress Sophia of Hanover
- Be of protestant faith (although there are moves to change this)
- Not be illegitimate.
Like most republicans in the ARM, Everingham fails to mention it is the parliament who controls these laws, not the Monarch. These laws were enacted by Parliament and can only be changed by Parliament.
Finally Everingham scrapes the bottom of the barrel and turns to the paperartzi for ammunition
“This is the man who told his then mistress, now his wife, that he loved her so much all he wanted was to be a tampon inside her!”
This quote Everingham uses as gospel reminds me of Turnbull’s famous email – seems republicans don’t care where their information comes from.
In his closing arguments he writes that
“Surely the time has come now for Australian to vote for the establishment of the Republic of Australia and truly take a serious place in the world as Australians with an Australian head of state”
Hmmmm, well Barry I’m pretty sure we had this vote and it was a NO. This may just be my opinion, but as an Australian I believe this great nation already has a serious place in the world, with the Queen of Australia. I also fail to see how our position would be taken any more seriously if we were a republic, unless of course the UK, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Canada, Belgium, Spain, Denmark are not taken seriously.