Republican reactions to the Royal visit have included the republican movement promising “education events” in the places the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visit.
This is better than their previous threats to campaign for a public at the time of the visit of Prince William, and during the Royal Wedding. The republican movement was divided as to whether there would be such campaigns or not (“Republican movement tells the BBC one thing, the ABC and Canberra Times the opposite” 19 April 2011).
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This time the republican website makes a curious comparison between the Australian rules final in Melbourne and the Royal visit.
…Peter FitzSimons….
In the meantime, Mr.Peter FitzSimons opened his weekly column in the Sun Herald (2/10) under the heading “What's up, your Royal shyness?
” It's been a terrible week I'm afraid. Devastating, staring at the crack cracks in the ceiling night after night kind of week. I mean, why? Why? Why? Why are Betty Windsor until the Greek coming on to to Australia this month – also Royal brothers candidates themselves before then – and not passing by Sydney?
" I feel so, so, so snubbed! So they're too busy, oh yes. There was down to Melbourne, for sure,. But assembly, the home of Australia's foremost pluralist, the redoubtable Prof David Flint, not on your bleeding nearly! Was it something he said?”
It is eleven years since the landslide against a politicians’ republic. Polling indicates that since then, support has declined even more. Significantly, there is little appetite for such change among the young.
The republicans have proved incapable of coming to any consensus as to what sort of republic they are talking about. The republican movement has been completely marginalised; the politicians who were so keen to jump on the bandwagon in the 90s have now decided not to touch the issue.
This they say is during the current reign, assuming of course that they will not be in office at that time. http://norepublic.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3729&Itemid=1
This bleak picture for the republicans may well explain their strange behaviour. They just do not know what to do.
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