As a staunch republican and a founding member of the Australian Republican Movement, I cannot but admire the extraordinary reign of Queen Elizabeth II. I have no doubt that Australia would have become a republic a long time before now if it were not for her.
It is difficult to think of anyone in Australia’s history that has been held in such high regard and for such a long period of time. She was adored throughout Australia even before she became our Queen. Five years before her coronation, when she married Prince Philip in November 1947, Australians from all the towns and cities took to the streets in large numbers to celebrate the wedding, which, in the age before TV, was broadcast nationally on radio.
Australians sent more than 2,000 wedding gifts and more than 10,000 congratulatory telegrams. Because Britain still had wartime rationing, the Australian Girl Guides sent seven large crates of ingredients to England for a giant wedding cake, including sugar, icing sugar, flour, cinnamon, almonds, sultanas, raisins, crystallised cherries, butter and a bottle of Australia’s best brandy. The Australian Labor prime minister Ben Chifley was widely criticised for not accepting the invitation to go to London for the event.
Her coronation five years later sparked even larger street celebrations. In addition to all the shops being closed, the trams in Melbourne were stopped because too many people were spilling on to the streets.
Yet none of these earlier celebrations could compare with the reception she received on her first tour royal tour of Australia in 1954, where, for two months, she and Prince Philip visited all states and territories, travelled more than 30,000 kilometres and an estimated 75% of the population came out to actually see the royal couple.
Over a period of 57 years she made 16 visits to Australia – on average one tour every three or four years – and was invited to officiate at some of our country’s biggest occasions, including the opening of the Sydney Opera House in 1973. Even Labor politicians who were lifelong committed republicans couldn’t resist basking in her popularity. In 1974, prime minister Gough Whitlam invited her to open the Australian parliament. In 1988, Bob Hawke invited her to officially open the new Parliament House in Canberra.
Much of the success of the Queen’s reign has been due to the exemplary way she remained impartial as dramatic social change and controversy swirled around her. In all the years she was on the throne we still don’t know her personal view on many of the big issues of our time – such as climate change, feminism, multiculturalism and same-sex marriage.
Among the extended royal family, only Princess Diana ever got close to the Queen in terms of popularity with the Australia public.
Realising that Australians were unlikely to ditch the British monarchy for a republic while Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, some republicans argued that the issue was best left until she died and Charles became king. After all, polls over the years have shown Australians have never warmed to Charles as they have to his mother. Indeed, for many years in Australia, as well as in the UK, Charles has polled as one of the least popular royals, along with his second wife, Camilla.
However, in recent times palace spin doctors have successfully given Charles and Camilla a successful PR makeover and they are both now more popular than they were.
I think it would be a mistake to think Australians are ready to embrace a republic. There is no doubt Queen Elizabeth leaves the monarchy as a strong institution, despite the almost total disappearance of the British empire during her lifetime. To many Australians “if it ain’t broke … don’t fix it”.
Such is the strength of support for the monarchy as an institution during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II that when Prince William and Kate brought their then baby son George to Australia in 2014, the local newspapers reported support for a republic had slumped to its lowest level in 35 years, leading one paper to describe baby George as the “republican slayer”.
• David Hill is the author of Australia and the Monarchy
