Vice-Regal Saint: Republican Rudd defers to nobody. Gettit?
Well isn't that nice. The new Prime Minister of Australia refused to swear allegiance to the Queen of Australia during yesterday's swearing-in. You know, the one in the country's constitution, the one who was democratically confirmed in the referendum of 1999, the one who swept every state in the Commonwealth, the chosen sovereign representative of the people of Australia!
No matter. The Honourable Rudd is above that sort of nonsense, and bloody hell if he is going to stoop so low as to respect the wishes of the Australian electorate and the existing Constitution. Mr. Rudd is answerable to nobody. Nobody! Far better to mouth loyalty to a bloodless abstraction and demonstrate allegiance to a phantom republic, than surrender to the indignity of bowing before the people's Monarch. In any event, the people want a republic. And by God, a republic is what I will give them if they have any sense!
Photo: The Queen with former Governors-General of Australia at Government House in Canberra, March 2006.
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10 comments:
This puts him, I'm afraid to say, in the same company as the IRA and Sinn Fein, whose politicians all refuse the oath.
Indeed, like them, Rudd should be denied all government pay...
Well. We should start organising now - how can this new, stupid attempt be stopped? How can the threat, that republicans will regularly return to the question until they get the answer they want, be permanently killed? When next the republicans lose, there should be a movement for some kind of amendment that would bring the situation in line with Canada, where hell itself must freeze like the rest of the country before it can happen.
One question. If it passes, can the Libs then hold another one a few years later, and get the Queen back? It would be ludicrously immature to be swapping your head of state all the time, but, since he is so keen to return to the question already, only fair. Unless of course Rudd intends his victory to be once and for all, and won't let the other side's victory so stand... (which is what, I am sure, he means)... which is as far from democratic as you can get, and just as far from the Australian 'fair go', too.
Look it is not that big a thing, believe it or not. Why? Because on entering parliament ALL new members MUST make an Oath to the Queen because it is in the constitution! So on entering parliament he would already have made the Oath.
Good point! Probably more republican sensationalist media hype than anything overtly disrespectful.
Sorta... but the constitutional symbolism is not ideal. In theory, the Queen, through her Governor-General, chooses the Prime Minister - he being the Member who can command the confidence of the House in such a capacity; electoral popularity being but the Queen's current method of choice.
The country and people of Australia are not the sovereign. It is peculiar though, in an anti-American age, to see this very Declaration of Independence-esque equation increasingly assumed. (SNP leader Alex Salmond made a similar oath/pledge upon assuming the First Ministership of Scotland).
What a little twit he already is. Sorry to be disrespectful.
Can we try a sensationalist revoking of the special reciprocal visa arrangements then please...Maybe that will wake some up?
Unfortunately, the oath of loyalty to the Queen is a rare sight in Australia. New citizens swear to some vague entities of "Australia and its people."
I would never be comfortable swearing loyalty to all of the people in a given country. Frankly, many of them frighten me.
I'm surprised anyone here read the Daily Mail to be honest. I'd as soon watch reality television. There is no new plan for a Republic as Rudd has emphasised again only a few days ago:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/11/27/1196036881854.html
Yes it is sad he did not swear allegiance to the Queen, but as Mr Byers said it is not that big a deal. This was probably a stunt to salve the emotional wounds of the Labor Republicans.
With the Citizenship Oath I fully agree with Viscount Feldon, it is stupid and I refuse to attend any citizenship ceremony with that silly vague oath, I will soon write more about this.
Does the constitution require him to take the oath to become Prime Minister?
If he did not take the oath, is it possible that he is not legally the PM?
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