Dear Supporter,
On Affirmation Day, 6 November 2009 it will be ten years since the Australian people affirmed their belief in an indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown.
Accordingly ACM has announced a suite of national events to commemorate the anniversary. (For details click on the icon on the right).
At the same time I invite you, in these most difficult economic times, to consider giving to our Tenth Anniversary Appeal.
This is because the republican movement has consistently refused to accept the people’s clear decision in 1999, believing no doubt that the people must keep on voting …until they get it right.
It is a public scandal that the republicans have managed to divert to these campaign vast amounts of taxpayers’ funds from schools, hospitals, transport, water and similar matters.
A significant part of this has involved the taxpayer funding a series of government inquiries reports and votes. There were five of these before the referendum and six since. Even the supposedly private Corowa conference was subsidised by the Victorian government.
Since 1992, without government assistance, ACM has been in the forefront in defending our constitutional system.
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From the standing room only rally in Sydney Town Hall on 26 November 1993, addressed by the future Prime Minister John Howard, to one of the largest and most peaceful demonstrations in recent years in Australia against Bob Carr’s 1996 decision to downgrade the office of Governor and expel the Governors from Government House, ACM has emerged as the leader of the Australian constitutional monarchist movement.
- ACM soon became the leading intellectual source in the defence of constitutional monarchy, publishing more than all of the other participants in the debate. Indeed Bob Hawke was to concede that the “constitutional monarchists are winning the intellectual argument.”
- In 1998, with 72.82% of the constitutional monarchist vote in the Constitutional Convention elections, ACM was able to forge there a powerful coalition with four smaller constitutional monarchist groups there, earning the praise of Cardinal Pell for our unity and our dedication to principle.
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"The main monarchist organisation is ACM. ..By 1999 ACM, like its opposite number ARM in the case of republicans, appears to have become the spokesperson for monarchists." ( Parliamentary Library Research Paper 25 1998-1999)
- Because of the size of our vote, ACM delegates were appointed to all eight constitutional monarchists seats on the ten person official Vote No Committee to handle the Vote No advertising campaign in the 1999 referendum.
- In a parallel but distinct campaign with supporter funded advertising, ACM appointed directors and opened offices in every state, with coordinators in every electorate.
- Marshalling over 50,000 supporters across the Commonwealth, ACM ran a tight and ultimately successful campaign which resulted in a landslide rejection of the politicians' republic in every state and 73% of electorates.
- When, after the referendum, the republicans announced their plans for a series of plebiscites, ACM adopted and has consistently denounced this as an irresponsible attempt to gain a vote of no confidence in the world’s most successful constitution.
- Planning to break the mainstream dominance of the media by republicans in 1999, ACM has embraced the latest technology. By marrying that with both deep and penetrating studies of the issues, ACM has developed its main site www.norepublic.com.au into what has been described as “probably the most active constitutional monarchist site in the world.”
- ACM's principal site is now attracting a record number of hits, more than twice as many as in 2008 and four times than in 2007. Based on returns for the first eight months of 2009, the projected annual rate is over 6 million hits and close to 3 million page views. Interest in what we are doing is not restricted to Australia; about 30% of visitors to the site come from overseas. In any major campaign, this site will become a significant source of information.
- Soon after the release of a report which included only 1 in 3 of Year 10 students could correctly choose a definition of the constitution in a simple multi choice test, ACM launched the latest version of our new major educational project, The Crowned Republic, with a new website www.crownedrepublic.com.au and an ambitious outreach programme.
With this track record, ACM remains a grass roots organisation.
From our inception our accounts have been audited annually and filed with ASIC. We file an annual income tax return and pay GST.
We depend on the support of thousands of rank and file Australians. We are grateful for efforts of so many volunteers and the underpaid work of our young employees.
Your generosity allows us to continue our important work.
You can make a gift now by PayPal, or send a donation to us on the form with the 10th Anniversary Events and Appeals brochure.
If you can continue to help us, we can guarantee that your work will greatly assist us and that that your funding will be well spent. We think our record demonstrates that.
Advance Australia Fair! God Save The Queen!
