Page 836 - Week 03 - Thursday, 25 March 1993
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and Britain declared war, both conservative and Labor politicians in Australia fell over themselves to say, "Because Britain has done it we should do it as well". Andrew Fisher, the leader of the Labor Party, made the very famous statement that the Labor Party, then seeking office, was with Britain to the last man and the last shilling. That was the spirit of the times. Australians regarded themselves as Britons first and Australians very much second. They were - - -
Mr De Domenico: Some Australians.
MR CONNOLLY: No. In that era, Mr De Domenico, the - - -
Mr De Domenico: I never regarded myself as a Pom first, let me tell you.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr De Domenico, we have got only as far as 1914 at this stage. I am talking of the temper of the then times. Times have changed. The enormous influx of postwar migration has fundamentally changed this country; and now there are so many members of our community who, like Mr De Domenico, have no personal attachment to the British Crown. When the Federation was being debated 100 years ago Sir Henry Parkes made his famous statement about the crimson thread of kinship which binds us to the empire. There is no such crimson thread of kinship now; or, if there is, it is confined to a very small portion of the population. The majority of the population now have family connections to the whole world, not just to the British Isles.
The time has certainly come for Australians to seriously debate the issue of the republic. It was so refreshing for those of us on this side of the house to see our Prime Minister very openly debate the republican issue. Mr De Domenico was firing off a bit of rhetoric earlier on about radical republicanism. Perhaps that was a view popular in the Liberal Party for a while - republicanism was somehow a radical issue. When the Prime Minister raised the republican issue last year, a lot of Liberals were salivating at the thought, "There goes Keating. He has taken on the republican issue. That will mean lots of votes for us. The conservative Australian public will flock back to the Liberal Party because Keating has put republicanism on the agenda". In fact, the reverse was true. The Prime Minister discussed and debated the republican issue all through 1992, and he did not duck the issue during the 1993 election campaign.
It is clearly an issue that the Australian people have no difficulty with. The tide is flowing very strongly in favour of an Australian republic. Our party bit the bullet some years ago when the National Conference of the Labor Party committed this party to a referendum on the republic by the year 2001. The Liberal Party at the time was scathing of that. We noted during the recent debate on the Federal Liberal leadership some encouraging comments indicating that at least the Liberal Party is prepared to debate the issue. I hope that the Liberal Party is prepared to debate the issue, because so far I have not heard a compelling intellectual argument in favour of the monarchy.
Mr De Domenico said that he does not think it matters very much, and spent most of his speech talking about other things such as AFL teams, very fast trains, the Commonwealth Games and baseball teams. That is fair enough. Some of his comments on supporting Canberra we would all endorse. But he did not put up any intellectual argument in favour of retaining the monarchy. That is fair enough. That is good. If you are taking a neutral stand, we continue to win the case. We hear no intellectual argument in favour of retaining the monarchy.
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