Doormat Australia is too timid to ditch King Charles

Earth to Hartcher: Timid Albanese already kicked that can, so far down the road, it's no longer possible to discern can or road. Plus, Albo rarely "races" at anything much. As Hartcher himself writes, he's "working towards creating a working group to begin planning a republic referendum".

I guess you could shoehorn a few more qualifiers or get-out-of-jail cards into that sentence. But let's get real.

Albanese looks scarcely more likely to deliver an Australian head of state than Morrison. By his own words, his constitutional priority is, look-over-there at an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The head of state must wait.

Meantime, his forelock-tugging priorities are glorifying the Queen, bringing the King to Australia, suspending Parliament, having a day of mourning, and stamping the King onto our coins. Following British tradition.

When would we get our own head of state? On Hartcher's timetable, about never. The Queen, he insists, didn't make us the "[prime ministerial] coup capital of the western world". So what? What's that got to do with the anxious apron-strings that still bind us to her Palace?

For 121 years, Australia has been sucking up to these British royals. Whatever Palace fibs John Howard is invited to repeat on ABC Insiders, the fingerprints of Elizabeth and Charles are on The Dismissal. And now comes this fresh tidal wave of grovelling.

Burbles Hartcher in response, Australia faces "deeply serious" problems, so the head of state must remain a "second-order issue". Peter, you could advance these nanny cautions any old time. There's never a right time.

Hartcher's cautionary companion is John Warhurst in The Conversation.

Claiming the Australian Republic Movement's preferred model is a "creative" starting point. No, it's not. It's bollocks. Their clunky head of state elected from 11 commonwealth-state nominees would never get up.

A second republican referendum, Warhurst concludes, is "at best five to ten years away…when Charles will be close to 80". Gee, as quick as that, lucky us.

Back in 1999, Howard had sabotaged the first republican referendum. He campaigned for the Queen, not for an Australian head of state. He stitched up the constitutional convention, headed by an avowed monarchist. By way of reward, the Queen brought him into her highly restricted "Order of Merit".

Back in 2022, as even the Australian Republic Movement concedes, and as other polls confirm, the general proposition of a "republic" barely wins a voter majority.