The Succession to the Crown bill 2015 is tabled in the House of Representatives with first and second reading speeches by Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Christian Porter, Lib WA, before debate was adjourned. The 13 page bill and explanatory memorandum are both clinical affairs belieing nearly 18 months of turmoil trying to get the Commonwealth law into place and could only be tabled after royal assent was given to the last State law – that of WA – on 3 March. Australia is the slowest of the 15 realms required to pass complementary legislation so that the British law to allow succession to its Crown – and ours – in birth order regardless of gender (and some other improvements completely irrelevant to us; see News of 22 January, 8 March and 26 April 2013) can take effect. The Canadian law, passed early in 2013, is subject to a High Court challenge. Sky News headlined the bill as, “Our monarchy being modernised”, a somewhat out-of-place sentiment for Australia in the 21st century. The difficulties between the Commonwealth and the States, led by the Queensland Government, over the status of the State Constitutions and their direct relationships to the British Crown absorbed a large amount of effort that could have been directed more productively. This demonstrated that the Federation cannot work efficiently under current arrangements quite apart from us being required to make complicated changes to our laws to facilitate an anachronism of a foreign organisation foisted upon us by Section 1 of the Constitution. WfaAR disagrees with Mr Porter that the bill “ensures the continued relevance of the monarchy to Australia and her people and reflects the commitment that all Australians have to equality and non-discrimination”. If it did, we would jettison the British monarchy immediately.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
