The Queen’s Birthday honours list – again – has some striking examples of well-known republicans accepting essentially imperial honours, a contradiction if ever there was one. This year, it is Jenny Kee, a founding member of ARM no less, and author Kate Grenville who had to defend herself in print (see Fairfax) and former federal Greens leader, Christine Milne. Last year, it was Cate Blanchett and Alan Joyce, the Irish-born CEO of Qantas. Until well-recognised and establishment republicans make it public that they have refused such awards until Australia is a Republic, as Jocelynne Scutt famously did in the late 1990s, there is not much hope for the cause.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
