Queen to Approve Dames and Knights in Order of Australia

The Prime Minister’s announces a new highest tier of Australian honours. In fact, it is an imperial honour as all appointments are to be approved by the Queen on the PM’s recommendation (after a perfunctory chat with the Chair of the Council of the Order of Australia). A similar process (PM/Queen) is used only for the appointment of the Governor-General. There are to be a maximum of four per year. The first appointment is Quentin Bryce made at her official farewell as Governor-General while the second is incoming Governor-General, Peter Cosgrove. The award is for people of “extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit in their service to Australia” or to “humanity at large”. The serving Governor-General will be the principal Dame or Knight in the Order of Australia. The new award will go to those who have accepted public office but not sought it and who can never entirely return to private life at its end. Whether politicians could be appointed remains unclear but the PM did not rule them out. WfaAR doubts it will be long before one is chosen. Not only does this award increase the hierarchy in Australia’s honours system, it reinstates knighthoods that were abolished in 1986, their contentiousness and divisiveness. It also by-passes the usual rigorous nomination and examination system for awarding Australian honours. Such boldness by Abbott is breath-taking and contemptuous of the electorate, especially as the decision was made by the PM without wide consultation or Cabinet agreement in a naked display of power, it embodies increased hierarchy, gives approval rights to the British monarch who is the foreign head of state and wilfully misunderstands the egalitarianism so deeply rooted in our culture. It also subtly changes the role of the Governor-General, establishes a selection criterion for the job – the only one – to test out commitment to the monarchy before appointment (we assume a potential appointee can decline a gong but then probably won’t get the job). The PM described the new honour as “an important grace note in our national life”. Grace notes are ornaments in a musical score, and – more to the point – non-essential. We couldn’t agree more. Presumably, these awards would not be made by republican-leaning governments but these things have a way of becoming currency among the establishment and proliferating of their own accord. The concept of the new award has been widely criticised as back-to-the-future and unAustralian, as were the recipients for not declining. The PM was reputedly stung by its strength and breadth of disapproval directed at him but it was well deserved. Read Rachael White’s article “Dame Quentin Bryce should have turned down her title” in The Guardian online 27 March 2014, link below.

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