Within 24 hours of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the first cracks were forming in a carefully choreographed Australian response to the passing of their head of state.
During a televised match between the Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) teams in Melbourne on Friday, players came to attention to hear a recognition of the country immediately followed by a minute’s silence for the Queen.
However, the juxtaposition of a statement that the players were on “unceded” indigenous lands followed a tribute to the country’s former monarch who claimed to be uncomfortable for some.
On Saturday (10), all other minutes of silence for AFLW games were cancelled, and the director of one of the clubs, the Western Bulldogs, released a statement saying that the tribute “digs up deep wounds for us”.
The incident demonstrates the lingering grief felt by Australia’s First Nations people since their country’s occupation by British colonists in 1788. In other Commonwealth nations, the Queen’s death sparked rumors — some louder than others — of moves to abandon the British monarchy for a republic.
But in Australia, despite the pro-republic views of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, there is no concerted effort in this direction.
In interviews and press conferences since the queen’s death, Albanese has repeatedly said that now is not the time to talk about a republic. And on Tuesday, the Australian Republican Movement appeared to agree, suspending its campaign on the issue until after the period of mourning “out of respect for the Queen”.
But for Albanians, the reluctance to push for a republic now is not just a matter of respect for the late monarch. The Labor leader made a pre-election pledge to hold a referendum to recognize Australia’s First Nations people in the constitution in his first three-year term, if he won the post.
When asked about this on Monday, Albanese said: “I said at the time that I could not imagine a circumstance where we changed our Head of State to an Australian Head of State, but we still did not recognize First Nations people in our constitution and the fact that we live with the oldest continuous culture on Earth. So those are our priorities this term.”
A resounding ‘no’
Changing the constitution requires a majority of Australians across the country, as well as a majority in most states, to vote “yes” in a referendum, a notoriously difficult task. Since the Federation in 1901, only eight of the 44 proposed constitutional changes have been approved.
The last rejection came in 1999, when the country’s citizens were asked whether they wanted to replace the queen and governor-general with a president.
Back then, the campaign focused on cutting ties with an archaic monarchy and moving forward as a bold new multicultural nation intent on forging its own path.
Indigenous issues were not high on the agenda, although Australians were given a second question to pass a new preamble to the constitution that honors First Nations peoples for their “kinship to their lands”.
This too failed, with Aboriginal elders at the time complaining that they were not consulted on the wording.
It wasn’t a surprise. Indigenous people had long complained that their voices were not heard by successive governments, so much so that, in 1999, Yawuru Peter Yu, now Vice President of First Nations at the Australian National University (ANU), followed the advice of a local elder to bring your message to the queen.
“A very old senior leader said, ‘You’d better go see that old lady abroad… because they call her name wrong here,’” Yu recalled. The old man meant that the only time the aborigines heard the queen’s name was when they were arrested, Yu told CNN .
“They felt that given the community’s respect for the queen, her name was being tarnished and her reputation tarnished and that therefore we needed to explain the situation,” he said. So they did.
Yu and a delegation met with Queen Elizabeth for about 30 minutes at Buckingham Palace and received a much warmer welcome from the monarch than any government in the UK or Australia, he said.
Today, Yu says Australia’s Indigenous community’s views of the queen are mixed — as in most communities.
“There are strong emotions,” he said. “And we continue to suffer with full force the consequences of colonization. But do we hold her personally responsible for this? I don’t,” he said. “Who I hold responsible for this is the Australian government… governments that have deliberately neglected their duty of care. That’s what I’m angry about.”
voice to parliament
By the end of his first term, Albanese has promised a referendum on the Voice to Parliament — a body enshrined in the constitution that for the first time would give indigenous peoples a say in the laws that affect them.
John Warhurst, professor emeritus of political science at the ANU and former president of the Australian Republic Movement, says a referendum on the Voice of Parliament is “without question the first priority” over a republic.
“You’re not going to have a discussion about it among Republicans,” he added.
Voice to Parliament is important for several reasons, Warhurst said. “It’s a line in the sand about Australia’s colonial past. It’s a line in the sand about race relations in Australia… and I think the international message would also be shocking if we don’t get this referendum passed.”
However, not all indigenous people support the concept.
Telona Pitt, a Ngarluma, Kariyarra and Meriam woman of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island descent, is the administrator of the Facebook group “Vote No to Constitutional Change,” which has 11,000 members.
She believes that indigenous people were not given enough voice in the drafting of the document that led to plans for a Voice to Parliament. And she says the government is already aware of indigenous problems, but hasn’t done enough to correct them — and that won’t change with a referendum on the Voice of Parliament.
“All it will do is weaken the aborigines and strengthen Parliament against us,” she said.
Pitt says a referendum should be held among indigenous people to see who supports the change before any questions are asked of the general public.
Warhurst says passing the Voice to Parliament would make it easier to pass more constitutional changes — but on the other hand, rejecting it could mean a longer road to a republic.
He said that after the Voice to Parliament passes, Australia may be ready to consider life after the monarchy.
That might not happen for another five to 10 years, but the campaign on the issue would have to start early “from scratch”, as Australia is not the same place it was in 1999, he said.
Potentially convincing Australians that it’s time for a republic could be easier by then, as nostalgia for a life under the Queen will have passed on to older generations, who grew up with much closer ties to the British monarchy.
“Queen Elizabeth’s presence was influential for some to maintain the status quo,” Warhurst said. “So I think now that we’ve moved on to a new king, some of the reluctance in the Australian community is gone.”
However, the ANU’s Yu said the issue of Australia’s Indigenous People must be addressed before any talk of a republic.
“How can you have a republic without settling the issue with the First Peoples?” he asked. “For me, it’s absurd. It has no integrity. It has no sense of morals or soul.”
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
