Hi all, let’s get started. We have a new member with us here today, so let’s give a warm Monarchists Anonymous welcome to Australia. You can take that empty seat where our friend Barbados used to sit, right there between New Zealand and Canada.
We are pleased but super unsurprised to see you here with us today Australia, and we want to acknowledge you’ve taken this difficult first step in admitting you are struggling with monarchy misuse. It’s important that you know everyone here understands this is the hardest step.
Many of us may work on this step many times. Some of us have to return to this first step after a relapse, while others review it periodically to help remind themselves that they will always be powerless over the British royal family and need to draw on various tools and strategies to remain monarchy free.
Step one is fundamentally about honesty. A lot of us in this room have a long history of causing pain to innocent bystanders while we were colonising under the influence. I understand from the form you filled in Australia that you have about 236 years under your belt, and a solid 190 of those you say you can’t remember. Look, we relate. Am I right Canada?
But it’s only with the cleansing light of complete honesty that we can effect meaningful change. To be honest Australia, after last week we thought it might be too soon for you to attend this meeting. We didn’t think you were sober enough to meet with the group but when your sponsor Ireland made a personal request, we decided we could meet you where you are, in whatever state you’re in.
It would be remiss of me not to remind everyone here that, while this meeting is private, none of us are anonymous outside this room and Australia, your reputation doesn’t so much proceed you as blow the bloody doors off.
We get it. When you’re under the influence, time doesn’t obey the usual constraints. It gets a bit murky on the old “who said what and killed whom” stuff.
Everyone here knows what that’s like — you don’t think you’ll relapse, you tell yourself it’s okay to have just one little royal tour then suddenly it’s 2024 and you wake up to find yourself sitting beside the king in an unnaturally large chair after he has refused to meet … now let me get this right … an Indigenous female politician from the oldest continuous civilisation on earth. Happens all the time.
And after this woman starts to voice her concerns that the king has never apologised for his people murdering her people and freakily keeping their bones, she is cut off by bouncers and a string quartet that plays louder than any Oscars orchestra cutting off Matthew McConaughey ever has. And they were loud.
Yes, upon reflection, it does sound very much like a fever dream. But it didn’t really end there though, did it? Because unlike 236 years ago, news gets ‘round a bit faster, and you had to front up while still under the influence.
Which was unfortunate. Because all the king’s horses and all the king’s media men had buggered off to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, leaving you to try and put a decent sound bite together. Again.
And for a whole week now, journalists from far and wide, left and the far, far right repeatedly framed an Indigenous politician addressing the king with her concerns as an “outburst” like she was a tire.
And then you doubled right down Australia, so far down you could have made eye contact with our brother in spirit, Barnaby Joyce this past February. You said this woman was “disrespectful” and didn’t meet the standard Australians “rightly expect of parliamentarians”.
Now that’s a long bow in a glass house Australia, you’re gonna need a lot more Blu Tack to get all these double standards up on the wall of the pool room. And on balance, it is difficult to litigate meaningfully given the standards set by other senators, so perhaps it is not the best time to invite everyone to a contrast and compare scratch and sniff competition?
Everyone in this room knows that we don’t make our best decisions when we are high on our own supply. And being in the middle of an international pearl-clutching shit storm is genuine nightmare fuel.
But you could have steered through that shit storm, Australia. In the long week since, you could have said “I am concerned that our head of state has allegedly not replied to repeated written requests for a polite conversation to discuss the issues raised by one of our senators and will be following up on that.” Because it would be a good look to acknowledge the concerns of your own people instead of racing to Nepo Baby the Third’s side with a Pimms poultice when things get marginally awks.
Yep, we do know you used to be a DJ Australia and you thought you could handle yourself. Next, you’ll be telling me your favourite film is Braveheart.
Oh.
Let’s get back on track and remember step one Australia: honesty. Be honest with us.
Do you really want to carry on like this? We know what it’s like not knowing how to stop and worrying that colonisation, and silly Commonwealth Games uniforms, is all you have in common with your friends.
As you yourself have said Australia, you believe in “Reform that holds no-one back, progress that leaves no-one behind. A stronger, fairer and more prosperous future – made right here in Australia.”
Now boil the zip would you, Samoa? I think we all deserve a cuppa.
No, Australia, we definitely do not have English Breakfast Tea.
Is it time for Australia to kick its royal habit? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
