Aussies ‘wise constitutional people’ says judge.
By David Flint AM
Bob Katter is once again enjoying himself over the Oath of Allegiance.
He, of course, knows that to sit and to be paid as an MP, the Constitution requires he make and subscribe an oath or affirmation of allegiance.
He says that instead of swearing allegiance to the King at the recent Opening of Parliament, he asked to swear allegiance to the people of Australia.
But that’s not what Hansard, the official record, reports.
This states, ‘The following members made and subscribed the oath or affirmation of allegiance.’
Against ‘Kennedy’ in Queensland appears the name, ‘Robert Carl Katter’.
Mr Katter will now be, as they say, hoist on his own petard.
He must be silent or persuade the editors of Hansard that he did not swear allegiance.
It is unlikely that they will be so persuaded.
You see, Mr Katter would have also been asked, indeed required, to subscribe the oath.
In other words, he would have signed a written form of the oath.
Will he deny his signature? Will he allege that this is a forgery?
And if he were able to persuade Hansard, or the Speaker or the House, he would have well and truly shot himself in the foot.
He would only have to swear and subscribe the oath, unless, of course, he decides not to sit and not to be paid.
The example of Senator Lidia Thorpe of the Australian Greens (who later became an independent) in August 2022 demonstrates the importance of an MP or Senator adhering to the clear constitutional requirement.
During her swearing-in ceremony in the Senate, Senator Thorpe initially added words and made a statement, referring to the Queen as a ‘coloniser’. The President of the Senate immediately intervened, stating that she was required to recite the oath as printed on the card and without any additions or alterations.
Still playing games, Ms Thorpe, as she then was, misread the card to say: ‘I, sovereign Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs–’
The President again interrupted her, instructing her to recite the oath as printed.
Senator Thorpe was then forced to repeat the oath in its correct, unaltered form to take her seat in the Senate legally.
She did so while holding her fist in the air, a petulant and pointless sign of protest.
Later, there was even a further controversy where Senator Thorpe claimed she had intentionally mispronounced ‘heirs’ as ‘hairs’ during her oath, suggesting she had found a way to not truly swear allegiance.
She forgot that the document she signed spelled the word ‘heirs’ correctly and she had not changed it.
This incident and Mr Katter’s indicates the strict unavoidable constitutional requirement that MPs and Senators, regardless of their so-called republican views, must adhere to the prescribed wording to sit and be paid.
I have said ‘so-called’ because it should be obvious to any serious observer that Australia is already a republic, a ‘crowned republic’.
This only emphasises the weakness of too many ‘republicans’ in 1999.
They were quite prepared to support a so-called republican model, one which would have made it easier for the Prime Minister to sack the President than his cook, just to be able to claim they had abolished the Australian monarchy.
The 1999 landslide result still demonstrates, as the late great Victorian, prominent member of the Labor Party, Supreme Court Judge, Governor of Victoria and leading republican, Richard McGarvie AC, QC, told the Constitutional Convention, ‘Australians are a wise constitutional people.’
Instead of engaging in infantile republican theatre, could not Mr Katter and Senator Thorpe at least do what some British MPs have done, cross their fingers behind their backs while swearing the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown?
They could rely on this infantile gesture of disavowal or insincerity regarding the oath.
At least they would be quiet.
In addition, Bob Katter, Senator Thorpe, and what is left of the republican movement should either explain what improvements their republic will bring to the governance of Australia or stop wasting our time.
Meanwhile, monarchists would be well advised not to join in petitions or fundraising to fund we know not what, certainly not to fight a republican movement which, if it is not dead and buried, is comatose.
Nor should they endow, obviously without requisite standing, a legal action where judicial good sense should surely lead to the conclusion that under the separation of powers, this nonsense is certainly not a matter for the High Court.
There are more important changes which should be made to our governance, which ought to be on our national agenda, including making the politicians truly accountable 24/7 and not just every three or four years in what the political class have turned into what many observant Australians believe are confected elections.
Originally posted to the Spectator’s Flat White.