Coronation of Australia’s New King and Head of State

Eight months after the death of “our Queen” and her reverential, lengthy funeral rites, we finally get to see exactly what the British monarchy, to which Australia is still shackled, represents. Commentaries about slavery, the tyranny of colonialism, the wealth of individual members of the limited-tax paying British royal family abound – all of this was supressed during Elizabeth’s reign for reasons that are not entirely clear but the genie is now out of the bottle. And it all looked so quaint: so British (lots of marching soldiers and richly dressed bishops) – and old fashioned. Certainly, the shorter, updated ceremony was still medieval in its essentials and intensely religious. There were crowns with dazzling but plundered jewels, golden carriages, newly composed music plus a ban on tiaras and the glamorous frocks were hidden under formal robes of state. This was laudable but what looked good on the youthful Queen in 1953, looked positively comical on an ageing monarch lacking glamour in 2023. There have just been too many political cartoons in the interegnum. The official photographs showed us Australia’s next three male kings – Charles 74, William 41 and George 9 dressed up in historical costumes – unless we do something about it. There was nothing of modern Australia to be seen in the ceremony even if Matildas captain, Sam Kerr, carried the flag into Westminster Abbey. The media went for sensation over oaths of allegiance and the like but, really, we didn’t need to look further than see our Head of State being anointed wth holy oil (vegan, made from olives in Jerusalem) as Supreme Governor of the Church of England – doesn’t sit well in our secular country. “Celebrations” at home were appropriately muted and limited to a few light shows in royal purple and a 21 gun salute on the forecourt of Parliament House in Canberra. Most people weren’t greatly interested and switched off or preferred to watch the football in prime time on a Saturday night. One striking corollary was that with all the State Governors and the Governor-General in London for the ceremony, a former Governor-General had to be specially drafted in – approved by the King himself – to carry out official functions, give royal assent to laws and sign appointments in the G-G’s absence for two weeks. We really are tied to the British and in so many ways. WfaAR couldn’t help noticing the large number of times that the British commentators referred to “the Commonwealth” in deferential tones as if it was an institution that inflated the UK’s importance. Apart from the Commonwealth Games, Australians don’t even think about it nor does it have any relevance to our opinion of ourselves or to our nationalism or about our country.