The Coronation
The Royal Coronation links us to our past and our future. God Save the King The Coronation of the King and Queen Consort signifies their unerring obligation to the Commonwealth, dedicating their lives to serve the nation, declared His Majesty’s Australian Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. Richard Marles. As if he were reading from an ACM-prepared script, he continued, ‘The bestowal of the Crown and the investiture of regal power exemplifies the pledge of their Majesties to a life of total dedication, duty and sacrifice.’ So, is talk of another republic referendum in the second term now passé? With this volte-face, Australians would not be surprised were the Executive Council to revoke the gratuitous insult to the late queen and the present king in the appointment of a parliamentary secretary as assistant minister for ‘the’ republic. The fact is this coronation, the ninth since the 1788 settlement, recalls the […]
King Charles III Accession
Proclamation of Accession of Charles III Charles III acceded to the throne of the United Kingdom and the thrones of the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, on the afternoon of 8 September 2022. Royal succession in the realms occurs immediately upon the death of the reigning monarch. The formal proclamation in Britain occurred on 10 September 2022, at 10:00 BST, the same day on which the Accession Council gathered at St James’s Palace in London.[1][2] The other realms, including most Canadian provinces and all Australian states, issued their own proclamations at times relative to their time zones, following meetings of the relevant privy or executive councils. While the line of succession is identical in all the Commonwealth realms, the royal title as proclaimed is not the same in all of them. Australia The proclamation in Australia took place in front of the Parliament House, […]
Sovereign Accession
Sovereign Accession Accession describes the event of a new Sovereign taking the throne upon the death of the previous King or Queen. A new Sovereign succeeds to the throne as soon as his or her predecessor dies and is proclaimed as soon as possible at an Accession Council in St James’s Palace. Formed of certain Privy Counsellors, Great Officers of State, the Lord Mayor and High Sheriffs of the City of London, Realm High Commissioners, some senior civil servants and certain others invited to attend. The Council is held (without the Sovereign) to formally announce the death of the Monarch and proclaim the succession of the new Sovereign, and to make certain consequential Orders of the Council mainly relating to the Proclamation. Following the proclamation, the Sovereign reads a declaration and takes the oath to preserve the Church of Scotland. The oath known as the accession declaration – an oath to […]
The Head of State Debate Resolved…
The principal argument advanced in the current campaign for a change to a republic is that the Head of State should be Australian; constitutional monarchists reply that we already have an Australian Head of State in the Governor-General. A hitherto overlooked High Court decision provides the key to resolving this dispute. This campaign is the fourth significant attempt to create an Australian republic. The first was to establish a white racist republic in the nineteenth century, free of the immigration policy of the British Empire. This faded away with the movement to the Federation, with the Commonwealth of Australia being endowed with an express power to establish a national immigration policy. The second and longest campaign was to create a communist state similar to the East European Peoples’ Republics established after the Second World War. Its proponents never made the slightest impact in Australia electorally, notwithstanding their control of several […]
Australia’s Sovereign
The Sovereign (The Queen or The King) is at the very centre of our constitutional system. In Queen Elizabeth II, we have been blessed with a Sovereign whose performance has been impeccable. Even those who wish to remove the Australian Crown from our constitutional system respect her greatly. So many Republicans say they now have to wait until this reign ends. They did not think this at the referendum in 1999. The role of the Sovereign is not, however, dependent on the qualities of the present incumbent, Queen Elizabeth II. The Sovereign is, at one and the same time, the person wearing the Crown and the office itself. This is illustrated by the traditional announcement on the passing of the Sovereign, “ The King is Dead. Long Live The King!” The concept that the Sovereign is both a person and an office has long been referred to as “The King’s […]
Queen Elizabeth II Accession
Queen Elizabeth II Accession Accession describes the event of a new Sovereign taking the throne upon the death of the previous King or Queen. A new Sovereign succeeds to the throne as soon as his or her predecessor dies and is proclaimed as soon as possible at an Accession Council in St James’s Palace. From 1952 until 2022, Accession Day took place on 6 February, during the reign of Elizabeth II. The present monarch, Charles III’s, accession day is 8 September. Accession Day is observed in the United Kingdom by flying specific flags and various official functions. On 6th February 1952, H.R.H. The Princess Elizabeth succeeded her father, King George VI and took the name Elizabeth II. When she was born on 21st April 1926, there was little to indicate that this would be her destiny. Her father, H.R.H Prince Albert, Duke of York, was born on 14th December 1895 […]
Anglosphere
According to Andrew Roberts, the English-speaking countries, the Anglosphere, today account for more than one-third of global GDP, despite their combined population being only 7.5% of the world’s population [i]. These countries share a common origin: their constitutional system, which gradually evolved over centuries. The constitution, which emerged in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, is the basis of later developments in all of the English-speaking countries. It is not that English-speaking people are more intelligent than anyone else. It is that they have long been accustomed to a liberal constitutional system. Such a constitution provides a stable, limited government where people are more free to make their own decisions. It also ensures that there are effective checks and balances against the abuse of power. An electorate used to living under such a constitution becomes more capable of making sophisticated judgements in deciding how to vote. They are, above all, suspicious […]
The Governors
The Governor of New South Wales is the oldest office in Australia. The Governor administered the colony under the law and in accordance with detailed instructions from London. As the colonies received self-government mainly in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Governor’s functions receded to those of a local constitutional monarch, with the additional function of representing the Imperial British government. The latter ended in 1926, but at the specific request of Australia, the Statute of Westminster, 1931, did not apply to the states. This meant that in State matters, for example, the appointment of the Governor, the Sovereign would act on the formal advice of the British ministers, who almost always acted according to the wishes of the State government. The only recorded case of disagreement between a Premier and the British ministers was the refusal to renew the appointment of Sir Colin Hannah as Governor of Queensland. He […]
Australian Legislature
Australian Legislature What is the legislature in Australia? The term ‘legislature’ is the proper name given to the houses – or ‘chambers’ – of parliament within any of the governments in Australia. The legislature at both federal and state/territory levels of government is made up of people elected by citizens. A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as primary legislation. First, the Australian Crown is part, and an inherent part, of each of the parliaments. Each one is The King, Queen or sovereign in Parliament. This is so even where the enacting formula has been twisted to remove any reference to The King, Queen or sovereign. (This is yet another example of creeping republicanism where the politicians […]
Australian Executive
Unlike the Parliament, of which the Crown is a constituent part, the Crown is the executive. The cabinet is an informal political body having no formal constitutional status. In the 1999 referendum, this was presented by the republican movement as some sort of constitutional flaw or oversight. It is nothing of the sort. That the cabinet, consisting only of the leaders of the majority, has no executive power is a protection and not a disadvantage. In the Westminster system, as the founders intended it to apply in Australia, its recommendations are subject to an independent audit. The republican critique that this is not mentioned in the federal Constitution demonstrates a refusal or inability to accept that the constitution has a broader meaning, that is as that “assembly of laws, institutions and customs… according to which the community has agreed to be governed.” While the Crown will normally act on the […]
Fount of Justice
The Crown And Law In the earliest times, the Sovereign was a key figure in the enforcement of law and the establishment of legal systems in different areas of the UK. As such, the Sovereign became known as the ‘Fount of Justice’. While no longer administering justice in a practical way, the Sovereign today still retains an important symbolic role as the figure in whose name justice is carried out and law and order is maintained. Although civil and criminal proceedings cannot be taken against the Sovereign as a person under UK law, The Queen is careful to ensure that all her activities in her personal capacity are carried out in strict accordance with the law. Reference royal.uk No less an authority than Blackstone, probably revered more in the United States than in the United Kingdom or Australia, explains that “justice is not derived from the king, as from his […]
Fount of Honour
The Sovereign is ‘the fountain of all honour and dignity’ and enjoys the sole right of conferring all titles of honour, dignity and precedence. Formerly, most honours were awarded on the advice of the prime minister and the premiers. The Order of Australia was instituted not by statute but by Letters Patent under the royal prerogative and has since replaced most imperial honours except those in the personal gift of the Sovereign. From this concept comes the ceremonial role of the Crown, which is an important part of the life of the community. This extends to the recognition of achievement, service and of, bravery and the lending of the dignity of the Crown to important events in the life of the nation and its many communities. The important feature is that this comes from the institution which is above politics and that the involvement of the Crown is in no way […]
Employer of The Public Service
The Crown is the employer of the public or civil service, and not the ruling political party. The loyalty of the public servant must therefore be to the non political Crown and not to the politicians. This enforces the obligation of the public servant to act within and according to law, and to provide advice not influenced by and indifferent to political considerations. The emergence of a non-partisan public or civil service coincided with the withdrawal of the Crown from political activity and the emergence of the constitutional monarchy as we know it. In advice which was equally applicable to Australia, Walter Bagehot argued that in 1867, to assure popular rule, there were only two constitutional models available to Canada: the British or the American constitutional model. Not only did he think a non- partisan public service did not prevail in the US, he believed it was impossible. The contrast between the […]
Commander-in-Chief
Under the Federal Constitution, defence is effectively a Federal power. The command in chief of the naval and military forces of the Commonwealth is vested in the governor-general “as the Queen’s representative”. Were this to be drafted today, the section might have provided that the command in chief is vested in the governor-general “as the representative of the Australian Crown.” But this would not change the meaning. It would, however, stress that the representation is that of the Sovereign’s political body, the Crown, as well as that of the Sovereign’s natural body. That the loyalty of the armed forces is to their personal Sovereign is a benefit and maintains their purity from any party political taint.
Constitutional Guardian
According to Sir Zelman Cowen AK, GCMG, GCVO, KStJ, QC (7 October 1919 – 8 December 2011) an Australian legal scholar and university administrator who served as the 19th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1977 to 1982), Said: the reserve powers of the Crown include the power to dismiss a ministry, to grant or refuse a dissolution, and to designate a prime minister. Few legal observers would deny the existence of the reserve powers, although in controversial cases, there is a debate on the manner and time of their use. In Australia, these powers are exercisable at the federal level by the governor-general. They are not reviewable by the courts, not being justiciable, nor is it for The Queen to review their exercise. It is, therefore, inappropriate for a viceroy to discuss their exercise in advance with the Sovereign. In addition, it is relevant at this point to recall […]
Federal Lynchpin
As the dominions rose to equality with the United Kingdom and moved from self-government to independence, the impact on the Crown was fundamental and probably not fully appreciated. The Imperial Crown, once indivisible throughout the old Empire, devolved into separate Crowns for each of the Dominions, which became, in modern parlance, the Realms. It is unlikely that any other constitutional system would allow such an evolutionary development. As Professor David E Smith concludes, republics are created; monarchies, particularly the British ones, emerge and evolve through the sharing of power. The move to independence was achieved more under the Crown than by imperial legislation. Under the Constitution Act 1900 (Imp.), the colonies became the states of the new Commonwealth operating under their pre-existing constitutions. Unlike Canada, the governors of the Australian states are not appointed by the governor-general acting on the advice of the federal government. This is a role the […]
Personal Union
Australia’s Personal Union
Head of the Commonwealth of Nations
The King or Queen, our sovereign, is the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations. No one has put her contribution to this role more clearly than the thirteen-year-old Australian youth ambassador, Harry White, at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games opening. He said: “Your Majesty, during the past 54 years of your reign, you have been the glue that has held us all together in the great Commonwealth of Nations in good times and bad times. The love and great affection that we all hold for you is spread across one-third of the world’s population in our Commonwealth.” The Commonwealth is one international organisation which maintains minimum standards for continuing membership. While Zimbabwe remains suspended from the Commonwealth (it claims to have withdrawn), a glance at the membership and chairmanship of the defunct UN Human Rights Commission will indicate that different standards apply there. The Commonwealth brings together countries that are […]
Australian Crown
The Australian Crown, more than just a symbol of the King or Queen’s ceremonial headwear, stands as our oldest legal and constitutional institution, deeply ingrained in our country’s governance. In our Federation, the idea of the new nation being a crowned republic was not just a passing thought. Today, it remains a vital safeguard against the potential misuse of power by elected officials at the Federal and State levels. Together with the High Court, it serves as the sole institution bridging the gap between the State and Federal realms. Our nation’s founding was a powerful vision of a unified Federal Commonwealth under the Crown, a vision that was not just embraced by the people but also enshrined by our Founding Fathers, and it continues to be a beacon of unity and strength for our nation. This was affirmed by the people in all six States and by 72% of all […]
Governor General of Australia
Since Federation in 1901 until 1965, 11 out of the 15 governors-general were British aristocrats; they included six barons, two viscounts, two earls, and one royal duke. The Role of the Governor-General has been described in detail on the Governor-General’s website. The relationship between the office and that of the Sovereign has evolved as the Crown itself has been Australianised and separated from the imperial British Crown, so much so that some people ask why we cannot just keep the viceroys, the Governor-General and the State Governors and dispense with our Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II her heirs and successors. We propose dealing with these three issues separately on this page see blow. General David John Hurley, AC, DSC, FTSE, is a former Australian senior officer in the Australian Army who served as the 27th Governor-General of Australia. He was previously the 38th governor of New South Wales, serving from 2014 […]
Australia’s Origins
[The King with His Prime Ministers 1926 (left to right): Walter Stanley Monroe (Newfoundland), Gordon Coates (New Zealand), Stanley Bruce (Australia), J. B. M. Hertzog (Union of South Africa), W.T. Cosgrave (Irish Free State). Seated: Stanley Baldwin (United Kingdom), King George V, William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada).] Australia’s Origins Australia’s Origins: The Crown, as Australia’s oldest legal and constitutional institution, holds a position of utmost importance. Introduced with the settlement in 1788, it has remained steadfast at the centre of our constitutional system, guiding and shaping our nation’s history. In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook charted the east coast of Australia and claimed it for Great Britain. He returned to London with accounts favoring colonization at Botany Bay (now in Sydney). The First Fleet of British ships, which arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788, played a crucial role in establishing the first penal colony. The History of Australia (1851–1900) refers […]
Governor-General’s Role
This extract was taken from gg.gov.au Governor-General’s Role The Governor-General is appointed by The Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister (see the Commission of 21 August 2008). After receiving the commission, the Governor-General takes an Oath of Allegiance and an Oath of Office to The Queen and issues a Proclamation assuming office. The Governor-General’s appointment is at The Queen’s pleasure, that is, without a term being specified. In practice, however, there is an expectation that appointments will be for around five years, subject on occasion, to some extension. The Governor-General’s salary is set by an Act of Parliament at the beginning of each term of office, and cannot be changed during the appointment. (See Constitution, s 3 and the Governor-General Act 1974). The Governor-General’s powers and role derive from the Constitution. Letters Patent from The Queen, dated 21 August 2008, also set out certain provisions relating to the […]