Dear Fellow Australians for Constitutional Monarchy,
I am posting below some photographs from our evening to celebrate the Coronation and the King’s Birthday as well as a letter from King Charles III thanking us. I am also posting some of our articles.
Incidentally, if you want to keep up with our activities, the simplest way is to look at our Facebook page, which you can find here.
As to a second republic referendum, this has always seemed unlikely to me without some indication of massive support which has never been shown.
That said, it is something about which we must always be ready.
Rick Brown, who was our director for the republic referendum campaign in the crucial state of Victoria, has an interesting view on a second referendum.
Knowing this was our most vulnerable state, he advised us how best to campaign there, advice which proved to be crucial. He also devised a slogan which the ARM recently admitted brought them to their knees, ‘Vote No to the Politicians’ Republic’. Kerry Jones and I had to field some irritation over this by some monarchist politicians who didn’t like it. Fortunately, we decided not to withhold it.
In a recent interview on the monarchist-friendly new platform which is home to Alan Jones, ADH.TV, Rick argued that issues like the republic tend to be generational. The republicans had their day in the sun and the issue is not going to come back again for many a year.
This is for at least three reasons.
First, the government has linked it to success in the Voice. Personally, I never thought this would succeed, and said so several times in Spectator Australia.
ACM is the one organisation with living experience of successfully running a referendum campaign. All the indications I learned then reinforce my view that the Voice will fail.
The second reason is no repeat referendum has ever succeeded, even where they have been repeated several times. Some were repeated up to five times, as I related in The Cane Toad Republic.
The third reason is that every few years there is another threat to hold a referendum but it is never held. This is because the politicians know it would result in a bigger defeat than in 1999. That is why we have refused to panic, and to try to unnecessarily raise large taxable funds for a dispute which remains unlikely.
It is of course possible that a desperate government could still go ahead. We remain ready for that. We have been constant, not chopping and changing about essential arguments such as the crucial fact that we already have an Australian as head of state. We have remained ready to run a tight campaign as we did in 1999, but using all of the latest tools. That is why we have built a ‘digital dream team’ to advise us on that.
That is also why we have long decided that an expensive city HQ is an unnecessary luxury. If there is ever another referendum we will do what we did in 1999 in all capitals other than our Sydney HQ. This was to find a pop-up office just for the campaign.
Next time – if there is one – we shall repeat that in Sydney along with other capitals where this is necessary.
But not now. That would be money down the drain.
In conclusion, I do want to introduce you to our new National Young Convenor, Daniel Lahood. He was a co-author of our recent opinion piece in The Australian Financial Review in which we explained that while ACM is taking no position on the substance of the Voice referendum, we had comments to make on the process. Because of failures there especially in relation to maintaining a level playing field, we have recommended that to avoid the likely defeat and the division which will ensue, it would be better to cancel the referendum.
In our view, the question should be referred to an elected and unpaid convention.
I recently had the opportunity of interviewing Daniel Lahood on ADH.TV.