Tuesday, 19 April 2011 | |
The republican movement seems to be intent on misleading the media. (Or the leadership is seriously divided about what they should be doing about the Royal Wedding.) This emerged when the BBC’s Sydney correspondent Nick Bryant pointed out in The Australian (18/4) that Australia’s republican movement can hardly hope to compete with the Royal Wedding ”… in a country where two out of three of the most watched television events in history have involved the Windsors: Diana's wedding and funeral.” …the truth?… Mr. Bryant added: ”The truth, of course, is they are not trying, and are waiting for the confetti to blow away. ‘We don't want to be party poopers,’ a leading republican, who did not think the wedding had broader implications for the cause, told me recently." …the ABC gets a different story… They said that the wedding was the ideal time to push their campaign. Here is their former chair, presently deputy chair and spokesperson, Professor John Warhurst with a debate with me on the announcement of the Royal Wedding: {youtube}_QMP2aqvtoI{/youtube} …no were not…
So it seemed fair to conclude that they had changed their minds. I wrote on this site “The republican movement had proposed a campaign for a plebiscite at the time of the Royal Wedding; it would seem this strategy may have been reconsidered (“Republican movement peeved by Royal Visit” 20/3) I then received this intemperate email from the movement’s vice chair and media director David Donovan who had previously denigrated my partial Asian origins by describing me as “perma-tanned”: “We never proposed anything of the sort – as we have asked you before, would you please stop telling lies about the ARM. Perhaps you can’t stop?” …yes we are…
But then Professor Warhurst insisted on continuing to push the campaign in the media – the one which their media director says they had never proposed. “As the Royal wedding looms, there is no better time than now to dethrone the monarchy and for Australia to finally become a republic.” The message could not have been clearer. Professor Warhurst says he even delivered the very same message the day before to school students at a national convention in Canberra. But then the movement tells the BBC they do not want to be "party poopers."
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April 19
Republican movement tells the BBC one thing, the ABC and Canberra Times the opposite.
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