The crowned republic, constitutional monarchy, is the most advanced, sophisticated and beneficial form of governance the world has ever known.
Some of you may scoff, and some monarchists may doubt this, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
It has just been announced that countries with the best quality of life are Norway and Australia. More importantly, crowned republics -constitutional monarchies – make up less than 20% of countries around the world but cluster towards the top of the list.
When I was invited to a 1999 debate on the republic referendum at an inner city branch of the Liberal Party of Australia, my assertion that constitutional monarchies were among the world’s most advanced countries was greeted with derision and ridicule. It was difficult to believe this was a branch of the party founded by Sir Robert Menzies.
So some years ago, as evidence of our argument that constitutional monarchy offered the world’s most consistently successful form of government, ACM has been posting the evidence on this to this site.
This is principally in the United Nations’ annual Human Development Index. By ranking countries in a way which is more consistent with this thinking, the HDR report has helped shift the debate away from gross domestic product (GDP) per capita as the only measure of development.
Instead, the HDI has provided a summary of each country’s achievement in attaining for its people:
· A long and healthy life,
· access to knowledge, and
· a decent standard of living.
In data just released, 50% of the top ten and top twenty countries are constitutional monarchies or crowned republics. Queen Elizabeth II is Sovereign of four countries in the top 25, and ten of those classified as having "very high" or " high" human development.
As is the practice, this report relates to the latest statistics available for use in the study – in this case those for the year 2007.
From those statistics, Norway was attributed the value on the index of 0.971, Australia 0.970.
This result is broadly consistent with every earlier edition of the HDI over two decades. It is also consistent with other measurements of well being taken over extended periods of time.
These have included a separate measurement of prosperity and, you may be surprised, even one for corruption (see map).
I have no hesitation therefore in asserting that the crowned republic or constitutional monarchy is the most advanced, sophisticated and beneficial form of governance the world has ever known.
Can anyone – anywhere – show me how I am wrong?