Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is nothing like debating a bill to change the way that the succession to the British throne works to remind you of how much it is well beyond time to be talking about making Australia a republic. If there is anything more irrelevant to Australian society today than the birth order of the British monarchs I do not know what it could be. Imagine how embarrassing it would been last year, when the Prime Minister of India addressed our parliament, when the President of China addressed our parliament, when the Prime Minister of Japan addressed us, to say, 'Look, all of that discussion about regional relationships and trade is really, really important, but what we really want to talk about is the succession to the British throne, because that is the issue of significant importance to the Australian public today.' Imagine how embarrassing that would have been.

Nonetheless, of course the Australian Labor Party supports the Succession to the Crown Bill. It is great that it is going to fix some of the worst aspects of those succession rules. It will mean that men will no longer take priority over women in the line of succession. It will go on order of birth, not on gender or sex. It will also mean that a king or queen's heir who marries a Catholic will not be barred from succession. Both are laudable changes. But, as a republican, I look forward to a day when Australia no longer has a formal interest in who the King or Queen is. In the meantime, while Australia remains a constitutional monarchy, I agree that it is important to make these changes. Of course I acknowledge the contributions of the Queen, the Royal Family and the governor-generals that we have had in this nation. All of them have been outstanding individuals who have made great contributions. These changes are consistent with Labor values of promoting gender equality and religious freedom. But talking about the British monarchy just seems so old fashioned and out of touch.

Mr Howarth interjecting—

That is why, as the member for Petrie might remember, there was so much laughter when the Prime Minister announced knights and dames last year. There was out-and-out mockery of the Prime Minister when he reinstated knights and dames last year. The member for Petrie might be a monarchist, but most of us on this side are republicans, because we are modern Australians.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

Labor has a clear platform in favour of a republic, as I am reminded by the member for Jagajaga. We are republicans because we think the monarchy, just like the Prime Minister's ill-judged decision to reintroduce knights and dames last year, is archaic when it comes to Australian society. Could you have had a greater misread of the temper of the times? Actually, yes, you could have had a greater misread: it happened on Australia Day 2015. I have to say that when I looked at my Twitter feed that morning and saw those comments about the knighting of a prince I thought, 'This has to be a prank. Come on—it's not April Fools Day, is it? Have I woken up after a very long sleep?' But it was not a prank: it was absolutely true. The Prime Minister, on Australia Day, had knighted a foreign dignitary. I was pretty surprised—obviously not as surprised as the members of the Liberal-National government, but I have to say that I was pretty surprised. I remember the collective shock of that day. Surely no Prime Minister of Australia, in 2015, on Australia's national day, would do this? You would have to be completely out of touch. What have we got? A Prime Minister who is so out of touch that he thought this would be great. He thought that this would be received with applause, that people would be so incredibly grateful to him. Well, I tell you who was not incredibly grateful: one Campbell Newman was not incredibly grateful to the Prime Minister for the activities on Australia Day. One Campbell Newman was pretty shocked, in the middle of a state election campaign, to have a Prime Minister knighting a prince. He was not the only one.

Of course, as much as you might engage in mockery and opprobrium of the Prime Minister for doing something so fundamentally out of touch and disconnected with the values of Australian society, it did serve one beneficial purpose—apart from the beneficial purpose in the state election campaign, obviously. That was to remind us of the importance of the debate about choosing an Australian head of state. We can improve gender equality when it comes to the succession to the throne, but we cannot elect an Australian, whether they are male or female, gay or straight or bi, cisgendered or transgendered. We can let royals marry Catholics but we cannot elect an Australian head of state regardless of whether that person is Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or atheist. We have no right, no opportunity to choose one of the many inspirational leaders in our community that represent our identity and our values as modern Australians. Holding the highest position in Australia is a matter of birth, privilege and blood line. It is a position that cannot be held by any Australian. In our egalitarian society, in modern Australia, in outward-looking, multicultural, egalitarian Australia, that is fundamentally archaic and wrong.

That is why our continued reliance on the throne seems to leave us clinging to a monocultural past of exclusion, when national identity seemed assured, unquestionable and permanent. But it was not. Those British-to-the-bootstrap days have long gone. Our British origins are fundamentally important to us, but no more important than our multicultural present and the long history of our first nations people. This is the story of Australian multiculturalism. The monocultural past is fundamentally out of step with our modern Australia. We are not British; in fact, we are much closer to Asia geographically. We are diverse; we are cosmopolitan; we are multicultural. You will remember Prime Minister Keating's One Nation speech, which was one of this country's most significant contributions to repositioning Australia's place in the world. It added to our national story, identity and symbolism. You will remember his Redfern speech about the importance of Indigenous Australians to modern Australia.

It is important for our future prosperity that we are clear-eyed about our national values, our connections to our region and our Indigenous history. If you look at foreign perceptions of Australia, they can sometimes be unfortunately stereotypical and superficial. I met David Morris, the head of the Australian Republican Movement, a couple of years ago. He has been doing a lot of work on Australian identity. When he conducted research into how our Australian brand is perceived in the UK and Ireland, it was fun, sun and surf—not what we might like to think people see us as, which is as a source of innovation or high-quality goods and services. Of course, we know that the Irish have not been all that happy about the way our Prime Minister has seen them this week, particularly today, of all days, on St Patrick's Day. These sorts of images of us overseas, as David Morris has argued, do nothing for our economic security. Moving to a republic would give us an opportunity, if not the right, to be seen as a grown-up, adult nation, a nation that is confident in itself. It would give us an opportunity to embrace those qualities that are truly our own.

Of course that includes our Indigenous culture. Like others in this place I want to see the recognition of our first nations people in the Australian Constitution as soon as possible, because I think that we need to recognise and acknowledge that our first peoples' struggles to overcome the effects of dispossession and British colonialism more than 200 years ago are actually fundamental to our growth as a modern Australian state. We need to recognise those first nations people in our Constitution, and we should do so as part of our shared movement, as Australians, with shared Australian values, with a shared story—not just the story of integration into a European colony, but a story of people from many nations, including our first nations, working together, striving together to build a nation, build institutions and build a national identity with shared values. The idea of a fair go is as much about European convicts as it is about migrants who have come here for a better life, as it is about people fleeing persecution to come here for asylum, as it is about people overcoming dispossession that came with British arrival here about 200 years ago. It is the idea of the fair go that led to the Freedom Ride of 1965—

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