Australia’s identity - does it need a republic?

The death of Queen Elizabeth II will inevitably lead Australians into the nation’s seemingly interminable debate about becoming a republic. Current generations will date this back to 1991 and the formation of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM), a time when then Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, declared a republic ‘inevitable’.

However, republicanism in Australia dates back to 1832, when pastoralist and emancipist, Haratio Wills, advocated for it in his journal The Currency Lad. Wills’ position was undoubtedly influenced by the lot of his convict father who would have had no reason to love the British Crown.

In the late 19th Century, events like the Eureka Stockade and the subsequent formation of the Australian Republican Association fermented republican sentiment through the first draft of the Australian Constitution in 1891, a decade prior to the federation, which marked the start of republicanism’s decline. Interest diluted further through the two world wars in the first half of the 20th Century, with the pro-monarchy Returned Services League (RSL) for returning servicemen formed in 1916.

After World War II, Australia’s political system was dominated by the conservative Liberal Prime Minister and monarchist, Robert Menzies, for 17 years from 1949 to 1966. His party lingered in power afterwards until the famous “It’s Time” election landslide brought the visionary, reformist yet flawed federal Labor government of Gough Whitlam.

The controversial intervention of the Queen’s representative in Australia, Governor General Sir John Kerr, terminated his government in 1975 and reignited questions about the suitability and appropriateness of the constitutional monarchy for Australia.

The Dismissal, as it came to be known and written about, festered within the Labor party, so it was no surprise that the ascendancy of Bob Hawke on a landslide victory in 1983 provided the platform upon which he could make his ‘inevitable’ assertion. His Treasurer and prime ministerial successor, Paul Keating, was even more committed to the concept, but the election of the conservative Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard in 1996 effectively snuffed out the republican push, not least because of clever manipulation of the 1999 referendum which wedged the republican movement on the model for appointment of a ‘President’ as head of state.

So here we are again. Popular opinion prior to Queen Elizabeth’s passing suggested that there was more affection for the Queen than the monarchy and that the ascension of King Charles III would empower the nation’s republican push. However, a Roy Morgan Research poll of 12 September 2022, after KCIII took the oath, was not a good start for those with aspirations for the Australian Republic. The poll showed 60% of Australians favoured the constitutional monarchy over a republic.

The underlying themes for those supporting the monarchy were described by Roy Morgan:

“For the majority of Australians advocating that Australia remain with the Monarchy the key themes to emerge were those saying ‘Why change?’, ‘Why change what we have when it works?’, the stability and stable government the Monarchy has brought Australia for many decades, and the sentiment that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Alongside that theme there were those who relayed their distrust of politicians and that they don’t trust current politicians to being about a Republic because we don’t want to end up like America.” The ARM’s trends data also indicates a decline in support for a republic since around March 2022.

The result is perhaps unsurprising given the broader political and social context of the poll. At a time of huge global instability, including an increasingly threatening war in Europe and fear of Chinese ambitions in the Asia-Pacific, the impact of this on personal finances - rising living costs and depreciating asset values - people cling to anything that offers a veneer of certainty and predictability. King Charles III’s assurances that his reign will continue the style and substance of his mother’s were well crafted and sensitive to this angst. Better times may swing sentiment towards change, but they seem a long way off.

The underlying question in the debate about the republic is: what are those who advocate for it actually seeking?

Republicans argue that it is inappropriate for an independent country like Australia to share its monarch or head of state with the United Kingdom. As ARM advocate, Frank Cassidy, once eloquently put it: “We want a resident for President.” Significantly, republicans argue that we are no longer a nation that Robert Menzies described as “British to our bootstraps.” In 2021, the proportion of Australians born overseas was 29.1%, one of the highest ratios among OECD countries.

But when Australians think about their place in the world, are these the issues they are concerned about? Are these central to Australia’s identity?

For most indigenous Australians, the answer is undoubtedly yes. They have legitimate and substantial grievances with the British Crown under whose auspices their country was invaded in 1788 and declared terra nullius, or deemed to be uninhabited or unoccupied. Terre nullius enabled Britain to ‘settle’ without regard to the country’s rightful owners, rather than invade. This was a patently disingenuous and racist stance, which rendered a sub-human status on the indigenous population. Subsequently, massacres and other violence and humiliations were underpinned by it.

The influence of terra nullius’ and its related perspectives was felt until 1962 when indigenous people gained the right to vote and prevailed until the Mabo decision in 1992 that overturned terra nullius, recognising the original ownership and rights to country for Australia’s indigenous people.

With few exceptions, acceptable constitutional reform for indigenous Australians would mean declaring a republic and all future ties to the British Crown.

Other Australian demographics are consistently ambivalent towards the republic, as they are towards changing the Australian flag, an issue that really came to the fore in the early 1980s and in parallel with the incumbent government’s push for change. The arguments for changing the flag and, specifically, removing Britain’s Union Jack from the top left corner, are akin to those for removing the monarch as Australia’s head of state.

The flag issue also reflects ambivalence about how to establish Australia’s identity. Essentially, the flag is "‘brand Australia’ and a projection of the nation into the world. Unlike the mostly invisible head of state, the Union Jack flies as a subtext before everyone’s eyes to Australia’s history and identity. Notably, indigenous Australians have their own iconic flag minus the Union Jack and more empathetic to the colours, culture and experience of Australia.

Australian ambivalence was highlighted by the popularity of the boxing kangaroo flag, which carried the fight for Australia in the 1983 America’s Cup yacht race. It was cemented into the Australian psyche by Australia II’s victory, the first time the Auld Mug had been wrested from the grip of the New York Yacht Squadron. Australia II’s owner, entrepreneur Alan Bond, later sold the boxing kangaroo with red gloves to the Australia Olympic Committee, for which is it mascot. But copyright is flung aside by Aussie sports fans who deploy it at international football, cricket and other events.

The iconic boxing kangaroo will never become the national flag, although some would be happy with that. However, it is worth asking the question as to whether the enthusiasm for it is in part explained by the possibility that less than universal enthusiasm for the national flag created a vacuum into which the kangaroo boxed its way?

People working with brands know that logos or icons are not the brand, which has its roots in organisational or community culture, the way people behave towards each other and how they project their values to the world.

Contemporary Australia’s culture, attitudes and behaviours derive from a milieu of cultural influences, most of which lie outside the United Kingdom. Most significantly, Australia’s history uniquely taps into 60,000 years of indigenous culture, cruelly swept aside from the 18th to 20th centuries and still struggling to be legitimately recognised by our institutions and society. There is no other nation in the world able to tap into a culture and history of 60 millennia.

Disturbingly, the recent Roy Morgan Research insights tell us that a large proportion of Australians back the constitutional monarchy on the basis that ‘it ain’t broke, so why fix it?’. This reflects an insular attitude, unaware of or worse, uncaring about the exploitation and inhumanity of its foundation that caused it to be broke before it commenced.

It is the most compelling evidence that in forgetting our past, we are irrevocably tied to a history, its institutions and its symbol that define the empire that expanded to these shores in 1788, its own wealth and power built prominently upon the building blocks of plunder and exploitation across the globe.

The British Crown and Union Jack were the heart and totem to this history and Australia must break with both in order to project itself into the world with unity of purpose and fairness.

Photo: Courtesy of Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)