It is a day of highs and lows. First of all, we had Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, commit to a referendum by 2025. That’s 10 years away. It is a plus of sorts to have a date but his speech to the ALP National Conference contained two rather lacklustre sentences on the subject under the heading “Social Justice” delivered with little enthusiasm (compared with four bland sentences on 25 January at the end of his speech at a booklaunch – see News Item of 25 Jan). The long timeline again puts the Republic on the never never: neither Shorten nor the ALP might be in Government by 2025. The conference itself endorsed that the next ALP Government would have a Minister or Parliamentary Secretary responsible for the Republic; there would be a Constitutional Convention, a plebiscite (non-binding) on the method of selecting the Head of State and then a referendum. ARM called for the ALP to commit to a plebiscite by 2020 but its claim that Tony Abbott will be the last monarchist PM could be a bit off the mark. [“Bill Shorten calls for Australian republic by 2025 at Labor national conference” by Judith Ireland, Sydney Morning Herald online, 24 July 2015]
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
