Every so often some republican threatens the nation with dire consequences if we don’t become a republic.
Professor Gilbert, then Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne warned in 1999 that if we did not vote Yes in the referendum, we would become the laughing stock of Asia.
Now Patrick Smythe of Emerald Beach NSW has taken to the letters columns of the press to issue a dire warning: The Australian, on 10 January.
"People ask me," he writes " why, after living in this country for four decades, I still support the Poms in the Ashes."
He continued:
“Well, the Barmy Army sum it up when they sing "God save your gracious queen". As long as Aussies continue to tug the forelock, I can't and won't support them in any sport”
….threats and more threats…
Mr. Smyth does not tell us whether he an Australian. But we gather he maintaining his rage because by the nation did not vote the way he wished in the 1999 landslide against the best republican model the republican establishment could devise.
Does Mr. Smyth really think anybody cares?
His threat is about as influential as that of the then Irish editor in The Sydney Morning Herald in the nineties, Paul McGeoch, who actually threatened that he would not become a citizen unless we voted Yes. We voted No.
And even before that, towards the end of the Constitutional Convention, an emotional Professor Craven warned Lloyd Waddy QC, from the floor, that he would not be voting "for you".
This followed from the monarchists refusal to accept a proposal mounted in the press that they should vote "strategically".
This scheme involved using our considerable numbers to defeat the Keating-Turnbull model by replacing it with the "least worst" McGarvie mode. Then we monarchistst were supposed to campaign against the McGarvie model in the referendum.
This was unanimoulsy rejected by ACM and its allies.
Mr. Waddy showed no concern that the Keating-Turnbull model came up, the one overwehlmingly endorsed by the republican movement. This was even when the leading republican newspaper at the time joined in the republican movement's rejoicing with the headline:
It's all over bar the voting.
But what makes republicans think they have anything to threaten the nation with?
…Government Australia Day Council and the Barmy Army…
In the meantime it seems the Barmy Army is the principal source of Sir Michael Parkinson's expertise on the need for constitutional change here.
This we suppose led the government Australia Day Council of New South Wales to choose him to speak on our national day, and to lecture us on constitutional change.
Around the same timethe republican flag changers at Ausflag, in alliance with Fairfax media, launched a divisive demand that the Australian Flag be shredded. They relied on former Australians of the Year. And who chose them?
The government Australia Day Council, which works from the Prime Minister's department.
Australia Day is now being used to promote the divisive minority views of a tiny elite.
Incidentally, here's the Barmy Army in 2006. No doubt because of the value of the intellectual property in this clip, the embedding has been disabled, but you can follow the link to Youtube.
What part of the Australian constitutional system their high command is referring to is not clear.
{youtube}LPITrWL1e0A{/youtube}