British Journalist, Catherine Bennett, asks the question as she reviews new tributes to the Queen of the United Kingdom and Australia exploding out of the Diamond Jubilee and ranging across her “abilities, wisdom, beauty, self-denial, endurance and devotion and that do not excude the physically superhuman”. Comparing Britons…
In a BBC documentary about the Diamond Jubilee, WfaAR was both astonished and amused to hear the WA capital city, referred to as “the remote city of Perth”. Modern Perth, with more than 1 million people, is not “remote” in the Australian meaning of that word and,…
Anne Twomey tells us that we know very little about how the Queen has fulfilled her constitutional functions, including with Australia, because of the effort made to prevent scholars, historians and her subjects from finding out. Documents held by the Royal Household…
WfaAR writes to the ACT Chief Minister requesting that the reference to the monarch be dropped from the City of Canberra’s coat of arms. The current motto is “For the Queen, the Law and the People”. This does not sit well with the decidedly republican…
Christine Grahame, a senior MP in the Scottish National Party, confirms that the party intends to hold a referendum on the monarchy. She says that there will be a vote about an independent Scotland having a “full blown monarchy, an edited…
WfaAR sadly records the death of determined republican Ningali Cullen, known to many as Audrey Kinnear. Ningali, born on traditional lands in South Australia but who later lived and worked in Canberra, was a link between the republic and reconciliation movements (National Sorry Day Committee Indigenous co-chair and Journey of Healing). …
A striking sight in the “White Whiteley” exhibition opening at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, today until 22 July. The centrepiece of the 11 works is Whiteley’s large portrait of the writer “Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979-80” that usually hangs in the NSW Parliament building. Whiteley attached…
At the opening of the UK Parliament, the Queen says, “My Government will continue to work with 15 other Commonwealth Realms to take forward reform of the rules governing succession to the Crown”. This means legislation to provide that children inherit…
Writer Valda Marshall, born in Adelaide now living in Sydney, wins the third Republican Short Story Competition for “The Child of the Holocaust” on the theme of Citizen or Subject. Valda describes herself as a longstanding, staunch republican, “At the movies in…
The republic debate in The Canberra Times is still going. Read our latest letter in reply to a persistent critic. Download: Letter to The Canberra Times [55KB, pdf]
