Republicanism and the royal wedding

And anyway, as Charles’ wife on his accession would be entitled to the courtesy title of Queen Consort, it has been announced that she will in fact be known as the Princess Consort. She is of course entitled to use any of her names and titles as she wishes. If the title Princess Consort is conferred on her, she may prefer to use that. In the same way, the Governor of New South Wales is not known by the courtesy title which comes from her marriage to Sir Nicholas Shehadie. Instead, Her Excellency is known as Professor Marie Bashir.

If on her marriage, Charles’ wife prefers to be known as the Duchess of Cornwall, rather than the Princess of Wales, and on Charles’ accession, as Princess Consort, and that is conferred, why shouldn’t she?

If the ARM were so ill-advised as to seek an order from a court that she not call herself Queen of Australia, they would undoubtedly receive short shrift.

As one caller on talk-back radio said when the marriage was announced, “They are entitled to a little happiness in their lives too”. Most Australians would agree with that and wish them well.

The ARM could not make this an issue in 1999, and they will fail in this attempt to revive it in 2005. Rather than this, perhaps they could explain why the taxpayer, having paid millions and millions to allow them to test their preferred model at the referendum where it was rejected in every state, should spend even more now.