When Australia was linked with the Danish Royal Family through the marriage between Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik, Australia’s republicans revealed yet another division among their group.
Greg Barns, formerly chairman of the republican movement, and recently involved in the promotion of the ”mate for head of state” campaign”, and who has also declared Australia to be "a pigsty", condemned both the Danish monarchy and any interest in Tasmania or any other state in the marriage.
Others ,including the President of the NSW Legislative Council who was pictured taking down the portrait of The Queen, curiously suggested that the Princess Mary become Queen of Australia. There were media comparisons made between the Queen of Australia and the Queen of Denmark.
Some in the media will now be surprised by a report in the London Daily Telegraph of 15 April, 2005, only just reported in some of the Australian media. According to this, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has called on her country "to show our opposition to Islam", regardless of the opprobrium such a stance provokes abroad.
The report, “We must show our opposition to Islam, says Danish queen” was by Hannah Cleaver in Berlin: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/15/wqueen15.xml
The report says that the “overtly political passages from an official biography published yesterday Queen Margrethe makes comments certain to complicate her nation’s relationship with Muslims.”
These are: "We are being challenged by Islam these years – globally as well as locally. It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and lazy.
"We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance."
"And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction."
This may well produce even further fissures among those intent on changing the constitutional system and the flag.