With good reason, Quadrant is promoted as Australia’s leading intellectual monthly. The March 2007 issue contained an article entitled “The Indispensable Crown”. The theme of this article, by the ACM National Convener, is that the republicans have not yet satisfied the threshold for obtaining change – knowledge and an understanding of the role, the function and the vastness of the Australian Crown, and a willingness to admit and discuss this. But that is only the beginning. They must then persuade their fellow citizens of the failings of this institution, and how, in all respects, the Australian Crown will be replaced in a republican model which is at least as good as, if not better than, the present constitutional system.
The publication of this article should encourage debate about the role of and the indispensability of the Australian Crown. However, serious republican reaction, or rather the lack of it to Sir David Smith’s opus on the Head of State, is not encouraging.
[The article draws from the recent ACM monograph, “Her Majesty at 80: Impeccable Service in an Indispensable Office”, which contains a foreword by Tony Abbott. This is available from the ACM national office, price $11 GSTincluded].