Dames Begone!

Prime Minister Turnbull announces the end of dames and knights. He said that Cabinet recently reconsidered the Order of Australia and concluded these awards do not belong in a modern Australian honours system. Nor, WfaAR says, do awards copying Britain’s hierarchical class system sit easily in our equality-based society that lacks a common history with Britain where knighthoods go back to medieval English honours personally bestowed by the sovereign. The Government is to recommend to the Queen that she amend the Letters Patent, that establish the Order of Australia, so that dameships and knighthoods are abolished. The four Australian appointees since March 2014 – Quentin Bryce, Marie Bashir, Peter Cosgrove and Angus Houston – will retain their titles (Dame/Sir) unless they renounce them, as will Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband, the sole foreign recipient. This last, widely ridiculed, award was the stunning catalyst for intense pressure on Tony Abbott’s tenure as Prime Minster from January 2015. He faced a leadership challenge from his own party within a fortnight of its announcement. WfaAR also notes that some of the latest dames and knights are diffident about using their titles – funny about that – and that the media frequently refers to them by just their name unadorned. The move to abolish knighthoods received wide coverage in the international media particularly in Asia.