My Victorian parliamentary colleagues and I becamethe first Australian MPs to swear allegiance to King Charles III.
Many were not particularly happy about it, but I was, because it was yet another reminder of our magnificent legal and cultural inheritance from England, which has guaranteed our peace and prosperity for generations.
In 1992, while opening the second session of the 50th parliament of NSW, the late Queen told MPs: “Events around the world in recent years have shown the strength of people’s desire for freedom to shape their own futures. We have all been witnesses to remarkable change as the people of many nations, with immense courage and determination, have rejected authoritarian rule and embraced democracy. The best guardian of freedom is democracy, and this parliament, like all other parliaments in Australia, stands in the proud tradition of democratic government. Each one of you, therefore, carries the heavy responsibility of representing the aspirations of your fellow Australians and of guarding their freedom.”
The royal family have their faults, all families do, but they are fierce defenders of our democratic traditions. As Lord Hannan wrote in the Telegraph last week: “It is striking to see how many of the world’s most liberal,tranquil, contented and egalitarian countries turn out to be constitutional monarchies: Australia, Canada, Denmark, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway. Even more striking is how many of these states share the same monarch”, now King Charles III.
I have lived all my life, as Churchill spoke of 70 years ago, in the tranquil glories of the second Elizabethan age.The succession has been kept safe for 70 years by the extraordinary work ethic, duty and judgment of the late Queen.
The profoundly important constitutional process we have witnessed and recently participated in, as citizens and in my case as a Victorian MP, predates our state’s Constitution by almost 300 years.The House of Commons, during the dark days of January 1649, the month King Charles I was executed, asserted
“The Commons of England, in Parliament assembled, do Declare, That the People are, under God, the Original of all just Power: And do also Declare, that the Commons of England, in Parliament assembled, being chosen by, and representing the People, have the Supreme Power in this Nation.”
This statement by the Commons at the end of the English Civil War, radical at the time, led to the Glorious Revolution, the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement ensuring our monarchy reigns with the consent of the people, and certainly does not rule. In this country, unlike any other of the 15 realms where King Charles is sovereign, the monarchy has been reaffirmed by popular vote too.
Sovereignty of at least the east coast of this continent was claimed for His Majesty’s great, great, great, great, great-uncle, King George III, in 1770. This sovereignty was reaffirmed on this continent by the executive councils of every state and the Commonwealth in days past, all serving by and with the confidence of the lower houses of their parliaments and by extension the Australian people.
In the 234 years since Arthur Phillip arrived at Sydney Cove two great women, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II, have been our sovereign for well over half that time. The stability these women provided us so that our democracy may flourish is often ignored. It should not be.
I was privileged to attend the Queen’s final garden party at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburghin 2019. Her late Majesty was resplendent in pink and, as Menzies said all those years ago: “I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die.”
The late Queen endured many trials and many tribulations, usually caused by members of her immediate family. I am sure at low points in recent times the late Queen might possibly have privately wished to summarily confine Harry and Meghan, and Andrew too, to the Tower of London, or possibly worse. But, despite being the fount of justice, those prerogative powers have been substantially reduced over the past few centuries!
When the late Queen opened the Australian parliament for the first time she said, “ … it is therefore a joy for me, today, to address you not as a Queen from far away, but as your Queen and a part of your parliament. In a real sense, you are here as my colleagues, friends, and advisers.” In 1974, when also opening the federal parliament, she told the Senate chamber: “I am particularly pleased that by opening this parliament I am able to perform personally an important constitutional duty as Queen of Australia.”
The Queen was not just a monarch living in London; she was one of us, and she should be recognised in Melbourne with a statue, to permanently commemorate her contribution to our national life as our longest- serving sovereign.
As the late Queen would have wanted, may we recite again the hymn and anthem with enthusiasm and loyalty, God Save the King!