No real Australian would ever knock back the chance of a day off. But having said that. surely it is time for the meaningless ritual of the Queen’s birthday to be consigned to its use by date.
For starters it is not even Liz’s actual birthday, and the public holiday varies from state to state. New South Wales loyally follows the mother country, where the anniversary of some long forgotten dead monarch is celebrated as an excuse for a long weekend in what England laughingly calls summer. In Australia, there has to be better reason for a beer and a barbecue.
And the idea of conferring Australian honours to Australians in the name of Elizabeth I is more than anachronistic; it is plain silly, as Tony Abbott found out in 2014 when he bestowed his own knighthood on the queen’s consort. The country chortled and Abbott never really recovered from the humiliation.
But now he has himself been awarding the glittering bauble of Companion of Australia, the top gong. There is nothing remarkable about that; it goes with the job of prime minister – that is, for those prime ministers vain and unthinking enough to accept it. And it has nothing to do with achievement – if Vlad the Impaler became prime minister, he would automatically collect a Companionship.
Abbott himself points to his attempt to bring down the deficit – the horror budget rejected as unfair and partisan. He also wants praise for stopping the boats and ending the carbon tax, triumphs seen by many as being on a par with those of Rio Tinto’s achievements in Juukan Gorge.
But if Abbott’s record is at best contestable, what can one say of Bronwyn Bishop’s legacy – serial failures on all levels. She was dropped from the front bench as spokesman for health, aged care and veterans affairs from successive Liberal leaders before securing the plum sinecure of the speakership, in which role she was seen as the worst and most biased ever to have held the job.
She was forced to resign over the misuse of a helicopter for party purposes and lost preselection from her safe seat shortly afterwards, retiring to become a commentator at Sky news, where she has spent her retirement ranting about imaginary socialist conspiracies.
Presumably her order of Australia was a reward for her support for the monarchy
But another prize went to the acerbic commentator Mike Carlton, an acerbic passionate republican who had to explain that the gong had been the brainchild of Gough Whitlam – the queen had nothing to do with it. True enough, but then, why was it – and all the others – announced on the queen’s birthday?
If there was ever a reason for this post-colonial grovel, it should have been long ago swept away by an independent Australia. If we have to throw lollies to the massed hordes of bureaucrats, the smattering of sports people and scientists and the ambitious politicians, let’s just do it quietly and preferably in a darkened room somewhere.
Some have earned recognition, but most have done no more than done their jobs without badly stuffing up – Bronwyn Bishop, of course, excepted. We can really do without celebrating Dennis Napthine (who?) and we can most certainly do without the nonsense of the Queen’s Birthday. If we have to acknowledge it at all, wishing her many happy returns on a Hallmark greeting card will be quite sufficient.
Mungo MacCallum is a veteran political journalist and commentator. His books include Run Johnny Run, Poll Dancing, and Punch and Judy.
mungomccallum@staging-johnmenadue.kinsta.cloud
Comments
9 responses to “There has to be better reason for a beer and a barbecue.”
As a royalty fanboy, Morrison isn’t far short of Abbott. Defending our exclusively white British Christian leaders with the old “system ain’t broke” chestnut.
Therefore, all eyes turn to loyal servant Fricker at Archives. Who’s given himself 90 days. And wriggle-room. Anything less than 100% release of the Letters should be taken as an evasion. Given how keen Morrison is to have King Charles.
Tony is an unfortunate relic of the old empire in a past century he would be up there with Cecil Rhodes and Baden Powell again unfortunately he is in this century with us.
I am sure he would much prefer a knighthood or a title that gave him entry to the House of Lords a right Bunyip Aristocrat
As for Bronny Bishop …. words fail me !!!!
Empire Day was the 24th of May. Commonly known as Bonfire Night. As a child of the 1940s, Bonfire Night was much more enjoyable than Guy Fawkes Night, 5th of November. Queen’s Birthday was always the nearest weekend to the 14th of June, though not in 2020. I missed it entirely. Australia used to have more public holiday/long weekends than we have now. One memorable year Jeff Kennett decided that Victoria had too many, and cancelled some.
Thanks for your thoughts, Mungo. I heartily agree with what you say and I suspect it would be supported by most Australians who want an Australian republic. The only ones who would take umbrage would be those on the screaming right of the “Liberal” and National Parties – and maybe some on the right of the ALP.
I personally don’t think that Gough Whitlam helped the republican cause when he declared that Elizabeth Windsor should be recognised as the Queen of Australia. It seemed very much out of line with his action to change Australia’s national anthem from the awful Germanic dirge “God Save the Queen” to Ädvance Australia Fair”. Many Australians I know said at the time that she may be Gough’s queen, but she certainly is not ours!
I am wholeheartedly in agreement with the concept that the Queen’s Birthday holiday us an anachronism in our modern 21st century Australia.
It would be more logical and drop this anachronistic holiday altogether. We could replace it with another national holiday for Labour Day. Currently this holiday is held at different times because it was originally declared to celebrate the achievement of the 8 Hour Working Day and this occurred at different times in the Australian states before federation.
The day also lost a lot of significance in Australia as many full time workers – until the COVID -19 lock down – were working far in excess of 8 hours a day. And many of them were not paid overtimes. At the same time, large numbers of Australian workers have been underemployed. (One of the important tasks after the corona crisis is over is to reduce the working day to ensure that more can increase their working hours.)
Many think that we should have a national Labour Day which would be celebrated on the same day for every state and territory. In many countries, the 1 May – or May Day – is celebrated as Labour Day or Workers’ Day. Even some of our very conservative SE Asian neighbours recognise this day on that date.
As we move towards becoming a republic, we also need to redesign our flag. The presence of the Union Jack is also anachronism. The Constitutional Monarchy Association argues that it should be there to represent Britain’s role in establishing the Australian nation. However, the Aboriginal people have been on this land for 60,000 years. How is it that they have no recognition on our flag or any mention in the Australian Constitution? These omissions should be rectified as quickly as possible. We nee to replace the Union Jack on our flag with an Aboriginal symbol and first nation people should have recognition in the Constitution. The symbol and the wording should both be decided by Aboriginal people through a revitalised national consultative body to replace ATSIC.
What progressive Australians want is an independent, non-aligned and independent Australia whose leaders are dedicated to working for international peace , human rights, social justice, fairness between nations and stopping pollution that is causing climate change and massive health problems ie not just a republic, but a just republic which plays an honourable role in international affairs.
Finally, while talking about the leaders this nation needs, I agree that Tony Abbott and Bronwyn Bishop are most undeserving of Australian honours. Their role in our Federal Parliament was to serve themselves and the rich and powerful who they really only represented.
My memory is that Empire Day was May 24, which was cracker night. Then Empire Day became Commonwealth Day, still cracker night. Then cracker night was moved to mid June, then as now known as the Queen’s birthday long week end. Anyone?
I miss cracker night…we in Canberra were perhaps the last to lose it to the nanny state…we always had a huge bonfire in the park…no approvals sought, just build it, chuck some kero on, light a match and whoosh!…magic…the kids loved it.
Love your (acerbic & insightful) work Mungo. Two things – Australia is a booze-addled, beer-soaked country. We, seemingly, can’t do anything at all without copious drinks. I will vomit if I see another article on a “perfect-life” celebrity whose favourite thing to do is drinking wine with friends. On the Queen’s honours, that Abbott was offered his order is explicable, but his deservedness is not in any way explicable. Moreover, his acceptance of the award says a very great deal about the real Abbott. That Bishop was offered an award surely confirms that the honours list is perhaps not wholly farcical, for it does acknowledge people who genuinely do good work in the community without expectation of fame or reward, but I cannot think of a single way that Abbott or Bishop have done anything positive for Australia – the country they were elected to serve. On the contrary, both only contributed negatively to the calibre of political debate in this country and it is unimaginable that there was a Speaker who was worse than Bishop and did more to denigrate the role. Her descent into ranting lunacy, for reward, seems complete with her newfound home at Sky – although perhaps a better title might be “Sky in the Dark”.
If I remember rightly what is now called the Queen’s birthday used to be called Empire Day.
My creaky memory is that, in NSW, Cracker Night/Empire Day was 23/24 May.
By the end of April we had eaten, to nauseation, all the sweets & choccies in what then were called “sample” bags (because, until the late 50s they used to be filled with the proud output of our domestic.. woss the word, oh yeah.. factories, remember those?
So, week by week, we’d refill the bags with quite dangerous quantities of explosives, with the occasional Roman candle or packet of sparklers for the mums & babies.
I recall that the next morning’s news always had the tragic blindings & badly scarred children and it was traditional for Sydney to be so covered in smoke & haze that it was not unusual for Mascot airport (as was) to be closed.