The second royal visit this year is yet another timely reminder that the Queen of Australia, at the head of our government, does not live here and is not Australian. It enables us to reflect on our continuing, deeply ingrained ties to Britain and our track record of being very slow to make the legislative changes that will allow us to create the “Great Republic of the Southern Seas” as Louisa Lawson put it so long ago. The change to a Republic, government by the people, is long overdue.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
