September 21, 2004
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
National Office, Sydney Australia
Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM), will be holding their annual conference at Quality Inn Belconnen, on Saturday and Sunday, 25th & 26th September 2004. The conference will concentrate on the ACM anti-plebiscite awareness campaign which has seen hundreds of thousands of Anti-plebiscite brochures being distributed across Australia. This campaign has been forced on ACM because Mr Latham and the Labor Party, fully supported by the Australian Republican Movement, have promised a plebiscite vote on a republic within 12 months if a Labor Government is elected on 9 October 2004. This would result in very little time for ACM to once again mount a national defence of our great Australian Constitution and the role of the Crown in it. We must be prepared!
At our 2004 ACM Conference, leading Australians will present papers opposing the plebiscite process as a means of constitutional change. The republican dominated 2004 Senate Inquiry has, as expected, recommended plebiscites as the process for reigniting a republic that most Australians feel is not a priority. Our Prime Minister, John Howard, has continually reiterated the strengths of our current constitutional arrangements. He has emphasised that the resounding No Vote in 1999 should ensure the republic is not to be revisited in the foreseeable future. Still it appears that some republicans will not take “NO” for an answer.
The conference will also focus on the ACM policy to support only Constitutional Monarchist candidates in the upcoming federal election. Mrs Kerry Jones, Executive Director of ACM will strongly emphasise the following point “Supporters of ACM have no political allegiance but to ensure that constitutional monarchists are elected in Australian election campaigns. ACM, is and has, always been unaligned politically. In accordance with the ACM charter of 1992 we hold different political views.”
Professor David Flint AM will open the conference at 9:30am, 25th September and will be available for interviews throughout the conference. He can be contacted on 0419 402 919. ACM Executive Director, Mrs Kerry Jones, will address the conference at 10:00am.
Members of the media are cordially invited to attend any of the conference sessions.