Australian Monarchist League -

Recently, at Toronto Airport, waiting for a plane sitting across the aisle from a café I was somewhat startled by a delivery boy of Asian descent dropping a tray of sealed containers of sandwiches and fruit salad.

The boy then picked up the fruit from the floor - not to throw it away - but to insert each piece with his soiled fingers back into the so called sealed 'untouched by human hand' containers.

There were two lessons I learned from this experience. The first is that never again will I trust any message about hygiene on these containers and the second is that despite written assurances to the contrary, so many things are not really what they seem.

The Republic Model Australians are being asked to vote upon is rather like a sealed package. It is being made to look pristine and exciting but once the package is opened people realise that it is not as it seems on the outside. Not only is it tainted. It is a can of worms.

On the outside is a message focussed on duping people that the dawn of a Republic at the dawn of the new millennium will automatically eradicate all problems and will ease us all into a utopian Society.

On the inside we find that this message cannot be further from the truth. Facts prove that rather than forge the way ahead, a republic, with estimated immediate costs of several hundred million dollars and potential ongoing costs in the region of 30 Billion, will sink us further into debt and could well lead to political instability the like of which has never before been seen in our history. A history, I might mention, which although somewhat short is nevertheless a history which has produced a rich, a varied and an intrinsically Australian culture.

It was a culture established not by commercial interests as in India and other countries but by the struggles of our early settlers who over years of tenacity and strife grappled and tamed our harsh environment so that within a hundred years following the possession of the land "Terra Australis" by Captain James Cook for the British Empire in 1770, there was established a civilization, the like of which had never been known in this part of the World.

What Britain did give to us was English law and the Westminster system of Government encompassing a myriad of rights and freedoms. By far the best legacy that our former masters could ever have bequeathed to us or indeed to any of the nations it once ruled.

It is thus that today, together with New Zealand and Canada and indeed those other outposts of settlement we share in a glorious heritage. A heritage of language. A heritage of culture and above all, a heritage of parliamentary democracy under The Crown.

A constitutional heritage based on the Ten Commandments adopted by Alfred the Great over a thousand years ago as his Constitution.

A heritage continued by William the Conqueror.

A heritage which led to Magna Carta of 1215, long before the very idea of constitutional monarchy was even conceived.

Magna Carta secured "the ancient liberties of the English people" and required that the Sovereign could govern and introduce new taxes ONLY with the consent of his people.

The last of many Monarchs who lost their thrones for abusing these rights was James II who, through his total disregard of Parliament, was defeated in what is termed The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-9 and was replaced by his son-in-law who became William III.

Before his coronation, William III was required to assent to a "Declaration of Rights" which went further than simply engraining the 'ancient rights and liberties of the People' for it provided a check on the Authority of the King by ensuring that Members of Parliament be freely elected and enjoy free speech unimpeded by Royal power or threats.

The Crown was prevented from keeping a standing army outside war without the consent of Parliament and was forced to rely on Parliament for income.

Thus we can see how authority passed from the King firstly to the Nobles and then to Parliament eventually evolving into the Westminster Democracy now considered to be the most perfect system of Government today.

In the latter years of the last century of, Australians met to determine independence, it t was decided to create a Federation of the six separate Colonies recognising their existence as States based on the British Crown for it is only through the Crown that the Westminster system of democracy can be complete.

A system which indeed fifteen former colonies still choose to adopt, most like Australia with the added advantage of adapting the Monarchy into a Constitutional Crown, for what was once the Crown of Great Britain Ireland and possessions and dependencies has separated into Constituent parts so that the Crown pertaining to Australia is now uniquely the Australian Crown. A Crown which amounts to far more than a sum of The Queen, the Governor-General, State Governors, Federal and State Parliaments for it is a Crown based on the will of the People.

A Crown that politicians quickly realized in 1975 was far from being merely symbolic but which held very real and substantial powers that could be exercised by the Governor General and although since that time our politicians have done everything within their power to diminish the Monarchy into a cipher-like status, it nevertheless continues to provide a final check and a final balance against the excesses of our politicians.

We have the best system of Government in the World. But even the best will fail us if we allow it to.

Was it not Edmund Burke, that great icon so often quoted but rarely heeded by politicians who said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

The democracy of our nations is in the hands of the People, but it will always be in danger if the People continue to blithely elect politicians who owe allegiance not to their electorate but to their Party.

As I have mentioned, in ancient days it was necessary to restrain the excesses of the King.

However, in modern days it became necessary to restrain the excesses of Parliament and this is why our Founding Fathers sought to fashion a permanent federation to prevent any abuse of power by a Commonwealth Government with an elaborate ratification process for amendment.

It is because of this process that politicians have to go to the People before the checks and balances remaining within our Constitution can be removed.

It is because of this process that we face a Referendum on the 6th November.

Whilst there have been many attempts by Republicans to promote their cause, including a failed coup, a rebellion and the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria's son, the Duke of Edinburgh, none have come so very close to success as now.

It all began ten years ago, in September 1989, when a group of antiquated demagogues gathered in the Woollahra mansion of former socialist Premier Neville Wran for a Sunday brunch which, according to the writer Thomas Keneally, were normally well lubricated with 'a number of bottles of Hunter Valley Chardonnay'.

It was at this lunch that Neville Wran is said to have leaned over the table no doubt intoxicating all and said "The other thing I want to see happen before I bloody well die is an Australian Republic".

The consequence of this luncheon was the formal launch of the Australian Republican Movement on July 7th 1991 at the Regent Hotel in Sydney guarded by men from the Special Branch. So fearful were they of a public backlash.

At this meeting the writer Keneally read out a three and a half page statement in which he said 'If we cannot find loyalty, sanity and human decency amongst ourselves, then we are finished'

It was proposed that the ultimate format of the Republic would be decided through public debate.

However the Model for a Republic that Australians are now being presented with, is so flawed and so befuddled that it is as drunken as its original founders appeared to be at that alcoholic luncheon of ten years ago.

Those proud words of Keneally at the launch of the Australian Republican Movement "loyalty, sanity and human decency" have all gone by the board as politicians descend to a new level of disloyalty and Republicans insanely push their Model for a 'Politician's Republic' that - according to opinion polls - is definitely opposed to the wishes of the Public.

As regard 'human decency', I leave it to you to decide what sort of decency you can expect following a reference to The Queen as a 'colostomy bag' by Keneally on St Patrick's Day in 1993.

In abusing the free speech which is our constitutional right, people have been encouraged to vilify our Sovereign and to deprecate our Monarchy. So much so that one does think it rather a shame that those old customs of the Ireland of which Keneally is so fond are not applicable today for under ancient Gallic law if the writings of a writer were found to cause harm then he could actually be made to 'eat his own words' in one or another form of retribution.

However, is not the Republic debate but a symptom of a far greater malaise? Have not the Governments of all the Dominions been enacting legislation designed to curb the rights of the People?

We have seen the British Government with, I might mention, the connivance of the Government of Australia forsaking its responsibilities to the Crowned Dominions by joining Europe.

Instead of forging a closer relationship with those nations it once subjugated and populated. The very Nations to whom they appealed for help in two World Wars, the British Government turned its back on us to itself capitulate to the forces of the United Empire of Europe.

In 1984 our Governments agreed that the British, the Australians and the Canadians would now term the Citizens of each other as 'Aliens'.

This crude terminology has done much to dispel any thought of Britain as the homeland once visitors are made to queue whilst those against whom they fought alongside Britain - at Britain's request - walk blithely through the special EEC Gate.

With the recent decision of the High Court of Australia terming Britain a 'Foreign Power', our two nations are now as remote from each other as we could possibly be.

This is not due to acts of the People but of our politicians.

Having said all this you may well say 'why do we bother to fight a Republic'?

The Australian Monarchist League is fighting a Republic because our Constitution was not forced upon us by Britain, but was devised by Australians to suit Australia. It has protected our democracy for nigh on a hundred years. It has made us, one of the youngest Nations on earth into one of the oldest democracies and just because our Governments are forcing a wedge between our peoples we are not prepared to trade our heritage for the worthless scrap of paper that will be our republican Constitution.

Our written Constitution is different from the unwritten one of the United Kingdom for ours is similar to a trust where the power of the Nation is reposed in The Crown to protect us from the excesses of politicians.

Whilst in Britain it is Parliament that is supreme, in Australia it is the People who are - or rather who can be - supreme.

The Republic that may be thrust upon us takes the power from the Crown and places it in the hands of a President who is subject to the will of the Prime Minister, thereby placing total authority in the hands of the very entity our present Constitution protects us against.

Our Constitution is a very simple document. It does not need to be lengthy or complicated for its essence is hat we are a Federation UNDER The Crown.

It is through The Crown that we, in Australia, inherit those 'ancient rights and liberties of the People'.

However, once The Crown in removed then the integrity of our Constitution is left open to interpretation by politicians and the judiciary.

It is like a House of cards. Remove The Crown and it all comes tumbling down.

When those wise men who were our Founding Fathers devised our Constitution, they deliberated for years over what the politicians of today look on as merely a 'string of words' but which in reality is perhaps the most important passage ever to be written in the history of modern Australia for what they did was to write the Preamble as well as to draft our Constitution.

"Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established".

It is this Preamble. It is this (to quote Shakespeare), 'Rhapsody of words' written under what I firmly believe was Divine Inspiration that has created the basis of the free and democratic Constitution that has made Australia an envy of the world.

If our politicians are to destroy the integrity of our Constitution, they must first destroy this Preamble for it is the Agreement by which our States have established themselves into a Federation under The Crown.

Is this is why our politicians are intent on including a new Preamble into the Constitution itself, having the potential to forever alter the intent of our existing Preamble.

Like (to adapt Keats immortal words) 'embalmers of the still midnight' our politicians have united in an unholy alliance manipulating and manoeuvring to mendaciously undermine the constitutional supremacy and sovereignty of the Australian People. to tear down the very fabric of our democracy. To remove our Crown and to replace it with a political infrastructure totally dependent on the whim of the Prime Minister.

We are told by Richard Butler, former Australian Ambassador that we must have a President because, as he says, 'taxi drivers in Columbia and Asians at cocktail parties cannot understand our system'.

From my point of view, our system works far better than anything they have ever been able to come up with. Furthermore, who gives a damn what taxi drivers in cocaine producing countries consider and whilst Asians may not understand how our system works, it certainly doesn't stop them crowding into rusty tubs and travelling thousands of miles to reach the safety of our shores.

Although, time and time again we have found the cards heavily weighted against us, it is not our lot to be discouraged for I believe intensely in the innate sensibility of the Australian People, that they will themselves see through the machinations of our politicians and the iniquitous bias of our media.

On our side, we will never stop warning people of the dangers of a republic and particularly of this Model for we are engaged in a desperate fight to save, not only the Crown, not only the Monarchy but more especially the democracy of the Australian People.

During a recent visit to Scotland I was fortunate enough to be taken to the enthronement site of the ancient Princes. The site on which the forefathers of The Queen, over a thousand years ago, swore to protect their peoples just as nearly half a century ago Her Majesty, as Sovereign of Australia, swore an Oath at Her Coronation, sitting most probably above the same stone throne that those ancients Princes did, binding herself to serve the legal will of the People of our country.

Over these years Her Majesty has never knowingly broken Her Oath.

There is no politician. There is no aspiring President who could possibly claim likewise.

Philip Benwell MBE