" Australians are not lying awake at night wondering who their head of state is"
Nick Squires in the London Daily Telegraph, 19 January, 2006, http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/19/waust19.xml
quotes me saying this in “Republicans want ‘a mate’ to become Australia’s head of state”
In the report Anne Henderson, “co-founder of a policy think tank, the Sydney Institute,” and deputy chairman of the republican movement, admitted that the campaign ". may be trivialising the idea to an educated person in Sydney or Melbourne but most people find the constitutional nitty gritty very hard to understand.”
The report say republicans concede that the debate has foundered in recent years, in large part because the prime minister, John Howard, is an avowed monarchist.
They hope to nudge the issue along in March, when they plan to raise the issue during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. They forget that politicizing sport is unlikely to be well received in Australia,
Allison Henry, director of the Australian Republican Movement, is cited as saying that having the Queen as head of state is “an anachronism. It’s getting ridiculous."
I am quoted as pointing out most Australians are happy with the present constitutional arrangement.
"Australians are not lying awake at night worrying about who their head of state is..Every so often the republicans come up with some sort of stunt but I can’t see this one getting very far."
Until next time,
David Flint