The Queen of Australia, here for a few days, tells us that we’d become more ‘self-confident’ while she’d been on the British throne. Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, showing overly and disturbingly deep homage to 60 years in the job says in reply, ” Your Majesty, we do not know where Australia’s path to nationhood may lead in the times to come.” What happened to 1 January 1901? WfaAR wonders what our Queen makes of such deferential displays of flattery by the colonials. Is this the court of Elizabeth I or her own? Also it doesn’t sound if our PM is really clued up about leadership or has any thinking or insight of her own to offer the nation.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
