September 11

The MP, the President, the Dalai Lama & The Queen

Here's an MP who has photographs  of both the President and the Dalai Lama in his office permanently, and occasionally, The Queen. When the new Parliament is opened, he will swear allegiance to the Sovereign, just as he did in 2010.

Wyatt Roy is "'making someone Australian," writes  Jacqueline Maley, Parliamentary Sketch Writer for The Sydney Morning Herald of 31 August 2013. This is in an extensive piece on the youthful MP .

"The lucky, soon-to-be-ex-foreigner is Margaret, a thin, pixie-haired Englishwoman who's a proud constituent of Roy's electorate of Longman, just north of Brisbane. She has been in Australia since girlhood, but only recently realised, when she applied for a passport, that she wasn't a citizen. Roy – baby-faced, diminutive and vital – is amending that for her with a private oath-reading ceremony in his Morayfield electorate office.

"'The pair stand beneath a Commonwealth Coat of Arms and a picture of the Queen, tacked to the 23-year-old federal Liberal National Party MP's office wall for the occasion. Roy, a staunch republican, will probably take down the portrait immediately after the ceremony. The other pictures on the wall of Roy's office – of the MP shaking hands with Barack Obama and a photo of him cuddling up to a beaming Dalai Lama – are permanent fixtures."

Ms Maley left this reader wondering why the MP is a "staunch'' republican, and what he understands by this.

@profdavidflint

 


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