In moves not seen since Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Premier, Queensland’s conservative Liberal National Party Government elected in 2012 has its skates on when it comes to embracing the British monarchy. First, it passed its own Royal Succession law refusing to…
Mark Seymour (ex Hunters and Collectors), composer for and performer in new musical play, “Dust” (about asbestos) says “I’m interested in the big Australian stories. They need to be told.” On the other hand, Karl Van Dyke from Macquarie University reflects on…
National Convenor, Sarah Brasch’s letter to The Canberra Times: “Good on the Governor-General. At the end of her final Boyer lecture, Quentin Bryce doesn’t call for a republic but foresees the progressive nation we all recognise. She holds up a…
The glittering prize from the ABC’s reporting of the Governor-General’s Boyer lecture republic comment is the release of the VoteCompass results for the republic question. People were asked their opinion on this statement: “Australia should end the monarchy and become a republic.” The data…
Quentin Bryce concludes her final Boyer lecture: “Advance Australia Fair”, by saying she hopes Australia might become a nation where “people are free to love and marry whom they choose. And where perhaps, my friends, one day, one young girl or boy…
The National Archives of Australia, the repository of Commonwealth Government records, presents a copy of the Larrakia petition from its collection to the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation. Signed by hundreds of Indigenous people, the petition appealed to Queen Elizabeth II, now Queen of …
Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, presents a new role for the vice-regal representative by giving the 2013 Boyer Lectures on the ABC, a prestige series of four talks, significant for their contribution to our social history, national identity and nomination of important future challenges for national contemplation. Departing from the usual low…
An obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald records that Myfanwy Gollan (1933-2013), partner of well-known public intellectual, republican and anti White Australia Policy activist Donald Horne, was a passionate campaigner in her own right. Ms Gollan was an organiser of the Citizens for Democracy campaign from 1976 to…
Crown Prince Frederick and, Australian-born, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark in jeans and runners (that went down very well) make a fine job of visiting people in the Blue Mountains affected by destructive bushfires in the last week. It is very obvious that we don’t need the…
In “The Stalking of Julia Gillard, how the Media and Team Rudd brought down the Prime Minister”, Kerry-Anne Walsh writes when speaking of CHOGM in Perth in late 2011, “Strangely, Aussies love this woman with the jarring title Queen of Australia……”…
