Heather Ridout, Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group and influential lobbyist, speaks at the National Press Club in Canberra. In a speech about the industrial relations framework, she surprised listeners by adding a personal view about the importance for…
Sarah Brasch, National Convenor WfaAR, speaks at WEA in Sydney about the republic and gender and discusses the reasons why WfaAR supports alternating gender for Australia’s own head of state Read what she had to say. Download: The Republic and Gender [205KB, pdf] Download: Why WfaAR supports Alternating…
Former British Dominion, the Republic of Ireland completes another peaceful presidential election. Democracy is working in Eire in the absence of a hereditary monarch. There were seven candidates with Michael Higgins (Labour Party nominee), a poet and former Minister, topping the vote with…
The ABC reports on Julia Gillard’s reaction to the change (see item below). She said, “Ultimately, I think the Australian people will work their way through changes to our constitutional arrangements but there is not a great deal of focus…
At CHOGM in Perth, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, announces that all 16 Commowealth nations of which the British Monarch is head of state, have agreed that first-born daughters would inherit the title and that people married to Catholics would not be barred even though…
Yes, the visit continues. Kate Greenwood of Jindabyne has her views published in the Sydney Morning Herald letters: “Thank you David Marr for reminding us of the absurdity of Australia’s persistence with the monarchy. I found the Queen’s speech the…
The Queen of Australia, here for a few days, tells us that we’d become more ‘self-confident’ while she’d been on the British throne. Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, showing overly and disturbingly deep homage to 60 years in the job says in reply,…
One of the most awful moments of the tour occurs when we get footage of our Governor-General, the Queen of Australia’s representative, making an awkward job of a bob curtsy to the Queen of Australia, our head of state, in her (the G-G’s) own house. …
Our National Convenor’s letter is published in The Canberra Times. Sarah Brasch says that the visit reminds us that our head of state doesn’t live here and isn’t Australian. She also says that we are not planning for a Republic…
The second royal visit this year is yet another timely reminder that the Queen of Australia, at the head of our government, does not live here and is not Australian. It enables us to reflect on our continuing, deeply ingrained ties to Britain and our track record of being very slow to…
