The noise generated by the Palace Letters had largely died down by the end of July but it made a brief reappearance in a piece by Good Weekend journalist Amelia Lester who discusses the taxing task of explaining to Americans why…
The flurry of attention to the Palace Letters continues. In its aftermath, this thoughtful piece below about what the reveal might mean for the republic looks at the campaign in the cold light of day. WfaAR agrees. What happened 45…
Michelle Grattan offers her commentary about the Palace Letters, their likely impact on the current state of the Republic debate; the cold facts of current political positioning and posturing on constitutional change and the importance of dealing with Indigenous Recognition…
The official release of the Palace Letters brings an abundance of analyses on the implications for the country and for the Republic. This striking historical perspective suggests their reveal should bring our links to the British to an end and…
Constitutional expert Professor Anne Twomey is quick off the mark with her take on the critical elements of the Palace Letters. She says that the primary sources end the conspiracy theories abroad since 1975 by establishing that our Head of…
With much fanfare and a press conference, the National Archives releases the letters between Governor-General John Kerr and the Palace between 1974 and 1977. There is no smoking gun. The primary sources make clear that the decision to remove the…
Megan Davis starts her discussion about the empty symbolism of Acknowledgements of Country spoken by non-Indigenous Australians with reference to the Republic. She writes: “There is an uncritical but flawed assumption that Aboriginal people are unquestionably Australian republicans. Professor Marcia Langton, responding to…
Commenting on the federal Government’s slowness to provide funding for the arts industry crippled by the pandemic with thousands of job losses, Chris Endrey comments, “The sad conclusion is one that lies at the end of too many questions – Australia is either…
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…
Another tired old Queen’s Birthday holiday, a relic of the predominantly white Dominions and maybe a tired Queen at 94 years and 2 months, her real birthday being on 21 April. And with it comes that tired old warhorse, the Queen’s Birthday honours, all 933 of them. Not much to…
