Republicans are so desperate they are now relying on the considered constitutional opinion of the Barmy Army at the cricket.
Tasting their victory, and encouraged by the demon drink, the Barmy Army slur as they tunelessly deface the Royal Anthem into:
''God save YOUR gracious queen …/ Long to reign over YOU …'' ad infinitum.
In other words, they are playfully taking the Mickey out of the Australian crowd.
But to use this as a justification for tearing our constitution apart is so ridiculous only the extremely obsessed would take any noticer.
We’ve heard this over and over. We have read it over and over. After about the tenth time it loses its effect.
…Herald letters editor publishes the same line …. again…
But this didn’t stop the letters editor of The Sydney Morning Herald (10/1) publishing yet another letter from yet another republican telling us something we have already read umpteen times.
Not only does he rely on this trivia, Mr. Tom Kelly of Balmain NSW obviously does not appreciate the constitutional limitations on whichever politician happens to be prime minister this year:
It may be up to the Australian Cricket Board and the Australian selectors to get the national team on to the front foot, but it is clearly up to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to move us away from the public embarrassment of having, as our head of state, a foreign aristocrat and head of state of the nation that colonised this country.
…It is not for Ms. Gillard….
No you’re wrong Mr. Kelly.
It’s not up to Ms. Gillard, who is quite capable of reading opinion polls and the focus group results. That is why she has pushed the subject off to "the end of the reign" – i.e. the never-never, when she is likely to be enjoying her superannuation.
As Her Majesty (The Queen not the transient PM) pointed out in 1999, this is for the Australian people to decide.
And in case you’re some Antipodean version of Rip Van Winkle, Mr. Kelly, the Australian people – in a landslide in 1999 – overwhelmingly rejected the best republican model the finest brains in the republican movement could design, nationally, in every state and 72% of electorates.