In the Left Corner

If we didn’t exactly realise this or when it happened, historian Judith Brett neatly captures the political shift in Australia since the mid 1990s to create the binary political world manoeuvred by Prime Minister John Howard. She says that our Republic was characterised as an issue of Labor and the Greens, along with “affirmative action for women, multiculturism, racial inclusiveness, native title, Indigenous self-determination, Reconciliation along with acknowledging violence and injustice towards our First Peoples, increased environmental regulation and a commitment to internationalism.” So that neatly incapsulates it. Australian republicanism was lumped in with other so-called soft, non-essential, progressive causes and there we have stayed. Also clear is that the 1999 referendum was a practice run for what was to follow – and it worked a treat. [“The Coal Curse” by Judith Brett, Quarterly Essay Issue 78, June 2020, p52]