Opposing Barry Everingham

A letter to the editor of The Age published today opposing yesterday's attack on our Royal Family:

"Barry Everingham claims ('It's time for a little stately act of our own', Comment, 19/11) that 'the respect given the Queen' may not be inherited by Prince Charles upon his assumption of the supreme royal authority. This is arguable. Impressive though Her Majesty has been in many ways, she could never have written a book as profound as Harmony, Prince Charles's detailed appeal to humanity to live in a sustainable manner.

"However, the importance of the Crown is in its role as an institution, one which offers dignity, stability and security to our Commonwealth. The quality of a particular monarch is of less significance, so long as the honour and effectiveness of the institution is maintained."

Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Victoria

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Same old same old

It is really not worth mentioning, but The Age used today's arrival day of the Queen and Prince Philip to publish fiercely republican articles.

Of course they dug up the inevitable Barry Everingham "a veteran commentator on royalty" - as you would expect. He recycled his articles from previous royal occasions. No need to read that opinion piece. There's nothing new in it.

Another article was written by Glenn Patmore, "a senior lecturer in law at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne", who laments recent opinion polls showing that the Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of the Monarchy (55 : 34).

"Has Australia become a royalist nation? Politicians are apparently enamoured by the aura of monarchy. They are keen to be photographed with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and the younger royals. To much fanfare, Her Majesty will be opening Melbourne's brand new children's hospital and officiating at other national events this week during what will most likely be her last visit to Australia. The tenor of the Republican debate has slowly changed too."

Poor old republicans, they will never understand "the magic of Monarchy".

It is worrying, that "a senior lecturer in law" refers to the rightly forgotten "2020 Summit":

"And the 999 members of the Labor government's 2020 summit in 2007, declared the republic as a key issue for constitutional reform."

As mentioned before, their 99.9 per cent majority on the April summit was achieved, because the so-called delegates were not delegated by anyone, but handpicked by the organisers. A democratic convention would be something completely different and would not have seen anything else but a 99.9% soviet style result for "a" republic, of which Glenn Patmore seems to be so proud of.

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More than ten million hits

Any website with more than 10 Million hits can only be called a success. In the year to 12th May Australians for Constitutional Monarchy’s website achieved 10,061.101 hits.

Though it is not the only Australian Monarchist website, it is certainly the most popular and the most influential.

Republican Australians hate it with fury: “David Flint clutches at every royal straw he can find”, remarked his most passionate enemy Barry Everingham.

And David Donovan, media director of the Australian Republican Movement, complained: "The problem republicans face is that monarchists like David Flint are happy to exaggerate, distort and sometimes even deceive to argue their case. Their strategy is to try to create a myth that will plant a seed of doubt in the minds of the uninformed."

David Flint, the national convenor of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, is above all a very active writer and publisher. His opinion pieces appear daily and more often than not, he writes two or three comments. Considering that about one quarter of ACM website's visitors come from overseas explains other monarchies (i.e. Thailand) or Monarchs in exile, King Constantine II of the Hellenes.

While the Murdoch and Fairfax media empires still advocate a republican ideology and have to come to terms with falling influence, the Monarchist websites grow more popular by the day. Recent opinion polls indicated a drop in republican sympathies. This is certainly not due to an unbiased reporting in the mass media, but only because the internet offers Monarchists to publish their arguments.

Well done, David. Keep on the fight!

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Republicans pin their hopes on the law of succession
When The Age yesterday published Margaret Fitzherbert’s serious and non-polemic thoughts on an overhaul of the succession laws to the British throne, nasty comments could be expected. And indeed, among of the 21 comments online there were the usual stupid remarks(“I'm not sure why we're even wasting time thinking about the succession to the British throne, when we're set to become a republic..."). However, the printed edition today contained only one letter to the editor. It came from the usual suspect: Barry Everingham, Malvern. “This is offensive in egalitarian Australia.” And so on and so on ...

That’s the same man, who on 3rd December 2007 published a Republican call to arms, which, much to his chagrin, was equally ignored as were his other attacks on the Australian Monarchy, for which he usually chooses Murdoch’s tabloid papers.

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When a republican tries to come to the rescue of another republican

After Guy Rundle used last week's Sunday Age to spread gossip and wishful thinking concerning “a” Australian republic, this Sunday’s edition published a letter to the editor written by Barry Everingham – according to The Age "a Melbourne commentator and a republican".

While it is always heart warming to see that the good old-fashioned solidarity still works for republicans, what Barry Everingham wrote, is simply wrong.

Here is his letter and I put my comments in brackets:

"GUY Rundle hit the nail on the head — the yawning indifference to the royals both here and in England is an indication that things are moving, slowly but surely. [When I find “yawning indifference", then it is one for “a” republic, as John Warhurst, himself a leading Australian republican, admitted.]

"A few weeks ago, we got a lesson from Princess Anne, no less, as to how royal visits, if they do occur [they only occur, when the Australian government sends out an invitation, something our arch-republican politicians very rarely do, but that is not the fault of our Royal Family, as Barry Everingham must know], need to be conducted.

"Representing her mum, our head of state — who already has eight representatives here, but that's a story for another day [may we remind Mr. Everingham that some of Her Majesty’s representatives in Australia are actually not following their Oath of Allegiance and work against the symbol they should well and truly represent?] — Anne flew in, went to Government House, freshened up, showed up at the Day of Mourning service, made a great speech [at least, he admits that it was “a great speech”], mingled with the volunteers and firefighters and then took off to the ravaged areas and, throwing protocol to the wind, gave succour to the suffering and next day was on a plane home. [So what? Did not the Australian Governor-General and the Australian Prime Minister fly in as well? None of them stayed even a whole day and they did not take up residence in a tent or caravan in Marysville.]

"The days of waving kids and blue-rinsed grannies getting all excited when an ethnic German foreigner pops in [that racist remark is unworthy for any Melbourne commentator and even for a republican. Should we follow Barry Everingham’s definition for a family that settled in Britain in 1714 still to be considered “an ethnic German foreign”, then less than one percent of the people of Australia could be considered anything else then “foreign ethnics”. A detailed refusal of this outrageous remark can be found here] are thankfully over for ever [how does he know? Her Majesty’s last visit does not prove his wishful think being more than just that: Republican wishful thinking.]

"Even the most rabid monarchists would admit royal tours today just don't take place. [Yes, but because the pollies don’t like the fact that the attention of the public turns away from them towards the Royal Family, therefore they do not send out invitations.] The Poms themselves aren't too enamoured by the shenanigans of the younger royals either. [How does he know? Did the most reliable source for royal news, Guy Rundle, tell him that? To how many British did he speak or is he relying on the Murdoch media, which very often appear to be the main source for Everingham's articles.]

"Rundle didn't find any interest in the London unveiling of the Queen Mum's statue and here we couldn't have cared less. [I could not find any proof for Guy Rundle’s statement. However, I saw photos of the unveiling of the Queen Mother’s statue. One, which is published here, shows the Earl and the Countess of Wessex . Take a look at the media mob in the background. Photographers galore, I’d say. The unveiling was reported all over the world - excluding Australia, I might add, but we know the reason why - and when I set a link to the German political magazine Focus, then despite knowing how Barry Everingham could find this to be a justification for his above mentioned racist remark.] "It is a case of bring on the republic as soon as possible." [The conclusion is complete nonsense and even Barry Everingham himself cannot wish Australia becoming a politicians’ republic. What else would this Melbourne commentator and republican write on, if not on our Royal Family? Or have you read anything else from him?]

[Her Majesty obviously enjoyed the unveiling of a statue commemorating Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, to repeat her official title, since Guy Rundle keeps insisting, that she was called Queen Mary, something even Barry Everingham could not support. There is hope, after all, that the truth may prevail.]

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