As we go to press, elections are being held for the constitutional convention. No one seems to be very worked up about it all, and it seems to be almost a foregone conclusion that Australia will become a republic in the next few years. Even Prime Minister John Howard, a confirmed monarchist, seems to have conceded this, and in this he reflects the pressure of a broad cross section of ruling class opinion.
Howard and those who support him are determined to allow only the most minimal of changes to the present constitution and the 'mainstream' media has dutifully followed the party line. Thus only two tickets to the constitutional convention are given any real coverage on TV or in the papers: the reactionary Australians for Constitutional Monarchy; and the extreme minimalist Australian Republican Movement, headed up by the merchant banker and Liberal Party member Malcolm Turnbull.
For Turnbull, a republic means simply cutting ties with the monarchy and selecting an Australian head of state. His position reflects that of a substantial slice of the Australian ruling class who want to cut the constitutional tie with Britain in order to get closer to real and potential trading partners in Asia.
The last thing they want, however, is any real change to the totally reactionary document that is the Australian Constitution written almost 100 years ago for Federation in 1901 -- or to the various state constitutions. (The abolition of the colonial hangovers that are the states themselves is the last thing on their minds,)
Australia is a different place today than it was after World War II, when Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies could brag that he was 'British to his boot heels', swear his undying devotion to the English Queen, and make us stand for the 'national' anthem in the pictures.
The monarchy never was popular with Australians of Irish descent and to this substantial minority have been added migrants from the four corners of the earth who care not a hoot for the Windsor family. Many older Anglo-Australians who did care about them have been repelled by their self-indulgent antics.
And what an awful crew these Windsors are! A Queen with all the charisma of a loaf of Hovis bread, who has amassed a fortune at the expense of her long-suffering subjects; her silly ass of a husband who remarked to his hosts in the Indian city of Amritsar - the scene of a terrible massacre of demonstrators by British troops under General Dyer - that he had served in the navy with Dyer's son, who had told him that the death toll was 'greatly inflated'. Then there is Charles 'Bigears' Windsor who talks to plants and wants to be reincarnated as a tampon; and the unfortunate Edward, known as 'Fog' to his chums because he is so 'thick and wet'. Another Windsor abdicated because of his pro-Hitler sympathies and deserted the British army under fire in 1940 for a life of ease in the Bahamas. And whilst the attempt to turn Diana Spencer-Windsor into a saint is in the tradition of bread and circuses for the plebs, there is no doubt that she was recruited as a brood mare for inbred bloodlines and shabbily treated by the royals.
Clearly, the English monarchy is at best an irrelevance, at worst a symbol of a class-ridden and grossly inequitable system. Any nation worth its salt would have cut the colonial ties over 100 years ago. That this country did not speaks volumes about its origins as a racist white settler colony on the edge of Asia.
As socialists we are not opposed to any real reform of the present system and we obviously would support cutting ties with the Windsors and the abolition of the monarchy altogether. However, we believe that a real republic should involve more than just a bit of tinkering to allow for the selection of an Australian head of state.
We must ask: how much will really change for the mass of the Australian population if the minimalists get their way? Will it mean justice for the Aboriginal people? Will it mean an end to the obscene extremes of wealth and poverty that plague this land? Will it mean an end to the economic rationalist holocaust that has slashed through our communities? Will it mean an end to the barrage of anti-trade union laws that seek to turn workers into slaves? Will it guarantee basic rights such as the right to strike and organise; the right to work; the right to a living income; the right to clean and safe environment?
We think not.
What the likes of Turnbull and Co want - and what Howard will settle for - is for business as usual, but with another besuited male opening the sessions of parliament.
They want a capitalist republic. As a bare minimum we want a bill of rights that reflects the needs and aspirations of the vast mass of the population: the workers, women, migrants, indigenous peoples. In short, we want a democratic socialist republic.