Doormat Australia is too timid to ditch King Charles

What the hell just happened, Australia? Get a grip, we can't keep grovelling like this. Can't we ever bring the curtain down on the 1954 Royal Tour?

As soon as news emerged of the Balmoral bereavement, sensible persons hit the brace position. It would be a rocky week or two. But it's been more extreme than my darkest dreams. Loonier than my silliest satires.

Before the royal coffin had even completed its own royal tour, our manifestly unsuitable new King was already having another jape at the old colony's expense. In Daily Telegraph, he was "planning a visit to Australia in one of his first moves as monarch".

He has a standing invitation from Albanese. Who's not about to be outdone by the fanatical royalist Scott Morrison. Whenever Charles does next intrude on our Canberra turf, remind me to go out and get arrested. Indeed, won't you please join me.

But it's not so much the Murdoch press that has failed us. It's our supposedly "centre" or "leftish" mainstream media. ABC, Guardian Australia, The Conversation and Sydney Morning Herald .

Here's what they could have said:

For many years, wise leaders and pundits have concurred, hush, be patient. Wait until the Queen dies. Well, she finally did, folks. Of course, we now urge a prompt transition to a local head of state.

Instead, their cloying message was:

Hush, keep being patient, can't you see the Queen just died?

Whereupon they sent forth a tsunami of nauseating Palace propaganda and simpering Royalist bilge.

In this post-Elizabeth climate of fake "republican debate", I shouldn't single out any one commentator. Instead, let me just eyeball two. On their better days, either one can do a lot better.

Consider this breath-taking insight, from the Herald's Peter Hartcher, "Albanese won't race to a republic referendum".