With the King and Queen of Australia based in Sydney for the whole five days (including rest times), the visit to Canberra was brief – just on five hours FIFO. WfaAR joined Republic UK to show support for its demo outside the meet and greet on the Parliament House forecourt on a very hot spring day. There wasn’t a huge crowd there as it as a working day but a steady trickle of sightseers made their way up Federation Mall, through security, but “the crowd” didn’t even fill the forecourt. Most seemed to be sightseers, many appeared to be from recent migrant communities (Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth), or parents taking insistent children to see the royals.
The “protesters” were kept a long way back from the forecourt and for much longer than expected, well after the 21 gun salute. We finally made it up to the top barrier opposite the forecourt at about 1.30pm where we continued to hold our posters and banners high keeping our distance from the red ensigns of the sovereign citizens at the other end of the barriers although some of their kin appeared to be patrolling the footpath on the other side of the road with regular Australian flags. Republic UK’s Abolish the Monarch flag flew high and was highly visible. The republic group of about 20 stayed until the end – some people stopped to talk to us on their way to and fro and said that they were kindred spirits wishing us well. We had a stoke of luck when the BBC interviewed Senator Lidia Thorpe right across the road and we formed the back-drop – those pictures made the international media and were good publicity (see also photograph on the Letters page in The Canberra Times of 7 November). It was striking that Republic UK had made the trip from the UK to protest during the visit but that there was no organised protest or public presence by Australian republic supporters en masse. It’s clear that our energy and resources have been almost depleted over 25 years until there’s hardly a whimper of protest but we have seen it all before. Republic UK and the existing Australian republican movement are now at very different stages of their campaigns. Our evening event at a local republican gathering place (a pub) was sparsely attended although there were some young reporters there from a local online news site who were very interested in the history right back to 1975.
The King spent the rest of the afternoon at Government House exchanging gifts, bestowing awards and handing over his personally designed King Charles III “Great Seal of Australia” for the Governor-General to stamp his approval on laws passed by the Australian Parliament. It all seems so formulaic and unnecessary – and, ultimately, meaningless for a country that has had its own Constitution since 1901.
