19 January

Women for an Australian Republic strongly voiced its opposition to the ARM about the Mate for Head of State slogan but it fell on deaf ears. ARM, which considers any publicity about the republic to be good publicity, responded when Deputy Chair, Anne Henderson, took to crikey.com to admonish critics by saying that only a few cafe-latte sipping women in Sydney and Melbourne could possibly object to use of the word “mate” (has she forgotten the monarchist taunts about the chardonnay-sipping elites supporting the republic during 1999?) and that because four women had helped to organise it, all was OK. No, it wasn’t. ARM must do better and try harder to represent women’s interests in the republic. Was nothing learned from the “mateship in the Preamble” debacle in 1999?