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The Queen’s Coup

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111–113 of 113 posts

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#111
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-Obviously, public opinion differs in different monarchies, but living in one constitutional monarchy - Norway - I feel that precisely as the monarchy is gutted of real power, its resilience is strengthened. One could quip that we need someone to inaugurate new infrastructure works, provide soothing, apolitical speeches in time of need and serve as an unelected symbol of our country - the 'unelected' bit being import…

As a dual-national UK/Australian, I can say it's a little more complex for us. In the UK, the monarchy fits pretty well with the other European constitutional monarchies, and there are reasons to support it as you say. I still think hard questions need to be asked about the exact nature of the monarchy, but it's clearly an English/Scottish/Welsh institution that belongs here. In Australia, it's a remnant of coloniali…

It's a country of those colonising this minicontinent. For them standing on position of the colonised scarce locals is laughable. Australian population is British. The same way as imported puritans, english elitists or the so called "white trashes" all are postBritish and can't represent Indians. And what kind of ancient Australian civilization you talk about? I never heard about anything useful for humanity invented by them. Anachronism is to be driven by "savage purity" myth while degrading achievements if own actual civilization (not forgetting it's side effects but being objective comparing it to other options - compare to old style Dutch plundering and British become suddenly a true blessing not a curse)

If Malayans wouldn't be so iddle Australia would be like Indonesia or rather Madagascar now and nobody would ever hear about any other natives there, like we don't hear about modern Ainu. Oldest doesn't mean better nor in any way more civilized. Australians could spend more time defending their guaranteed basic civil rights that become only theoretical in time of barbarian madness of sanitarism*. If they feel bad for aboriginal folk they can carve them big piece of Austrialia back and we will see how civilized they are at giverning themselves. But we all know Australia is equally imperial, predatory & hypocritical state as old Britain after what happened to Timor. So it won't ever happen.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how Australia works this one out. I think becoming a republic is a matter of when not if, and there's a ton of ideas around about what to do about a head of state. We're not averse to trying out new ideas if they seem good - the Aussie voting system is about as close to perfect as you can get (but our politicians not so much).

I used to think that Australian preferential voting was the best practical method. Though the Ranked Choice Voting debate in the US has taught me that STAR voting and approval voting are both easier to count and avoid some edge cases.

I think the Aussie system is flawed because of the party preferences thing - but that's more because the average voter just wants to tick a box for their party and be done with it. I'm not sure that the perfect system would actually be practical.

I always vote "below the line" - it's more fun trying to rank all those micro-parties in order of how much I agree with them :)

It's still miles better than the UK's system

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#113
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GG is the "Queen's Representative" in Australia and is appointed by her on the advice of her Prime Minister. She is "Queen of Australia" in this role, not Queen of the UK. As such, her advice to Kerr should have been "Take the advice from the PM and the legal advice he has asked the Solicitor General and Attorney General to provide to you". That should have been it. Anything else is improper and against the rules…

> If the Queen had tried to do the same thing in the UK, Parliament would immediately remove the Crown from power. That's very far-fetched. MPs take an oath of loyalty to the monarch on taking their seat. The entire House of Lords hold their positions wholly by the grace of some monarch or other. Without an electoral mandate, it's inconceivable that Parliament would dismiss the monarchy. Yeah, I know, it's happened o…

MPs take an oath of loyalty to the Crown, representing the nation. The Lords (especially the modern Lords and Bishops) are appointed by the Crown on advice from the Prime Minister, so other than the left over inherited nobility, who's power has been severely curtailed in modern times, no one in the Lords is beholden to the Crown for their position.

If the monarch attempted to expand their power beyond their current minimal role in the UK, Parliament would exercise its supremacy.

As for "without an electoral mandate", the current UK government is on it's 4th (or 5th? I lose count) Prime Minister because it holds the confidence of the Commons.

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