(no subject)

[theducks]

I find myself reading the Wikipedia article on "Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy" .. and then I have another though.. "what /did/ I vote in that referendum?"

Yes, I was given the opportunity to vote on if Australia should become a republic or not.

And I forgot what I chose. It's clear I held strong views on the subject.

As for my current views, I for one welcome our tiara wearing monarch.

As messed up as it sounds, I think it's for the good of everyone that the only way to become the absolute head of state of Australia (or UK, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis) is to win the ovarian lottery.

I once heard a comedian say "In the USA, anyone can become President, it's just one of the risks you take". I think it's true. There are many people in America who are driven to success, to be the most powerful and rich they can be. Get rich enough and you can become powerful. Get powerful and you can become rich. One day, you could even be President. Sure, not everyone wants that, and sure, you might have to marginalise people individually to get power/money, but hey, if they were successful, they'd be the ones doing the marginalising. It's a dog eat dog world.

Notably, in Australia, to an extent anyway, those who are too successful politically or financially, without remaining down to earth, are vilified by the common man. Look at Paul Keating (previous prime minister) versus Bob Hawke (the guy before). Hawke was Oxford educated, and is now worth close to $50m, Keating wasn't. But Keating was the sort of man to say "get a job you bludgers", while Hawke was more likely to play cricket with them. Hawke's biography claims (somewhat tongue in cheek perhaps) that his world record in beer drinking probably helped him win more votes than anything else he ever did. Hawke had down to earth charisma, Keating didn't. I think this is something we value more (cf: Tall poppy syndrome).

Now that's not for a minute to say that there aren't people in Australia who rise to success by marginalising others or by being ruthless, but no matter how hard they try, they won't become our head of state, and the success of multi-billionaires like Packer and Murdoch is only begrudgingly congratulated by most of our population, whereas American multi-billionaires like Buffet and Gates are lauded by the press in the US.

My point to all this is, as long as the monarch remains a placeholder to stop people from pushing their way all the way to the top, I like to think people are encouraged along the way to stop and smell the roses.

Comments? :)

Comments

[goth-grrl.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty hard case to argue when the current monarch is a fucking awesome Queen. In an attempt to put my rose-tinted goggles aside, one thing I've always argued (when it's been demanded that I not debate on emotional grounds; I simply hate the idea of a President) is that a King or Queen is stuck with the job for life, or close to it. A temporary elected dude can happily make short-term crowd pleasing decisions, kiss the babies, and bugger off when his term is up.

Knowing that people are going to point the finger at you in a decade or two or five's time when something you cocked up comes to light certainly helps a person make some judgement calls with a bit more of the consideration I expect of somebody wielding that much power.

[theducks.livejournal.com]

Yup :) Good thing Edward VII abdicated.. otherwise we would have had king until 1977 who was chums with Hitler.

[goth-grrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, getting a complete prat on the throne is also a risk. It will come as no surprise that I voted against the Republic, but I was also motivated by the fact that the government model that was being pushed with the package was TERRIBLE. Always figured that it was a cunning bit of espionage by the Monarchists.

I guess the moral of the story is that a placeholder is just dandy, until you get a Lois the 16th (oh wow, I got that right from memory!).

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

This question is not rhetorical, I genuinely don't know the answer (although I suspect that it's "no").
Has Australia's reigning monarch (or, prior to 1952 the Monarch of Great Britain and her colonies) ever taken any action other than that advised by the Governor General?

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

Sorry, to clarify my "prior to 1952" part, I mean in their capacity as the head of state of Australia.

[goth-grrl.livejournal.com]

My brain wandered into fuzzy theory land, and sort of left out most of Alex's point entirely so that I could air my favorite anti-President rant. The Queen could (if our paperwork allows for it), I suppose, step in if she really, really, really needed to, but 99.9999999999999% of the time she's a figurehead that allows our system of government to...chug along on its own.