Karel Giffen

Good afternoon,


My name is Karel Giffen, a history teacher from regional NSW, constitutional monarchist, and as an Australian, proud of our nation’s history, heritage, and values for which we stand.


I write to you this afternoon to appeal to your assistance in continuing to hold the Government in check and to defend our nation’s Constitution under threat by the Albanese government.


With the passing of our late Her Majesty the Queen, the Prime Minister has followed all correct protocols of respect that is rightfully owed to our Monarch, however I fear this is simply a convenient deception to his true purpose in pushing Australia towards a republic, biding his time to launch an aggressive, pro-republican campaign soon than his second term (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/30/labor-says-time-is-coming-for-republic-debate-as-monarchists-claim-its-giving-itself-a-head-start), which the PM has always assured us would not happen until then.


With the appointment of the Hon Matt Thistlethwaite as Assistant Minister for the Republic, it is evident that the PM has the full benefit of the inherent power and authority that comes with being in government, along with the full taxpayer funded resources to, ironically, have a Minister of the Crown intent on bringing down the Crown. Under our Constitution, our current Oath is of course to bear allegiance to the Crown, so from that perspective, one could question the legitimacy of appointing such a Minister whose role is literally to undermine the Crown.


The following piece from Sky News (https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/peta-credlin/albanese-government-committed-to-forcing-a-republic-on-australia/video/8fe3abf5e690e88599760429e39fea96), which I understand of course has its own bias but has been nonetheless verified independently, stresses the gall of having a taxpayer funded Minister to undermine the Crown while the Opposition has no equivalent Shadow Minster to keep the Assistant Minister for the Republic in check. Moreover, the Government and its fellow republicans would argue the usual lies and deceptions as well that Australia is not an independent country while we are a constitutional monarchy, that we have a foreign health of state, and that Australians cannot run for the highest office in this land (https://republic.org.au/faq). This is or course not true, as the highest office in Australia is the Governor-General, who since the 1930’s beginning with Sir Isaac Isaacs has always been an Australian, who although is appointed by the Monarch, is done so under advisement of the current PM of the day. Moreover, we have been an independent nation since 1901 in which beginning with our Constitution and numerous successive Acts such as the Statute of Westminster (1931) and the Australia Act (1986) (Cwlth), our autonomy from the UK has gradually increased. It is thus deceptive to say that Australia is not an independent sovereign nation, in which the only way we can be independent is through a republic and in which it is only through a republic that an Australian can become our head of state.


The revelations from the so-called Palace Letters have since vindicated any doubt that the Monarch has an involved, ‘meddling’ role in Australian politics. Historians such as Jenny Hocking have eagerly awaited the publication of the Palace Letters, hoping it would be the ’smoking gun’ in the republican cause (https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6832435/the-hunt-for-the-smoking-gun-in-the-palace-letters/), hoping that they would find evidence within to suggest that the Queen ordered Sir John Kerr to dismiss Gough Whitlam, thus all the more reason for an Australian republic. What the Letters instead revealed was that Kerr acted independently, as is his Constitutional prerogative in dismissing the then PM, with no Palace involvement whatsoever (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53386554). In this way, the GG was exercising his power as Australia’s head of state free of foreign influence or coercion.


Having a PM play politics with our system of government at a time of mourning across the Commonwealth and at a time when support for our constitutional monarchy is steady (https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/support-for-australian-republic-drops-following-death-of-queen-elizabeth-ii-20220920-p5bjgj.html) is galling, especially considering the Assistant Minister for the Republic has the full benefit of the public purse and has the advantage of being in government to peddle whichever agenda they please. At a time global and domestic uncertainty, especially around economics and the cost of living, our country needs as much certainty and stability as we can muster, and tampering with our system of government which has served us so well, which internationally is a very stable form of government (four out of five of the most democratically stable countries on earth are constitutional monarchies) (https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2020/), and from a sentimental point of view has been important to part of Australia’s history, heritage, and identity as an Anglo-Western nation, yet with an ancient Indigenous heritage and modern multicultural character is an unnecessarily divisive move to make.


The Government and its republican allies will utilise whatever false information at their disposal to deceive the Australian people into their support. To that end, I propose organising a petition to send to the Leader of the Opposition to commit to appointing an equivalent Assistant Shadow Minister for the Constitution, whose role would be to provide factual information and education to the Australian people around our system of government to counter Labor’s lies and deceptions around our system of government and the ’need’ for a republic.


I know that as monarchists we do not always ‘bang the drum’ as it were around these sorts of issues, as we are generally self-assured and confident in our own system of government, law, and politics, however I fear more and more that Labor is girding itself for an aggressive republican campaign in the years to come, if not sooner, and our Constitution needs all the help it can get to defend our system of government which has served us so well and is of great significance to many Australians. If there is to be a republic in the future, it is because it has come from the initiative and will of the people based on education and facts, not because it has been forced upon us through misleading, deceptive information with no means of an intellectual and political counter attack.


Thank you for your time, and I certainly hope you are able to listen to my concerns, and to recognise and support the need to defend our Constitution in the current climate, as I perceive that currently there is an unfair advantage which needs to stand corrected.


Yours Faithfully,


Karel Giffen