Queen Elizabeth II "of England"
well...
The Queen’s Coup
41–50 of 113 posts
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#42This seems a rather passionately biased take on the - undoubtedly very controversial - constitutional moment, that seems determined to push "blame" onto the late Queen. The title is absurd clickbait. Reading into the background in less partial news articles it seems that the Royal team were rightly answering the GG's questions in his uncommonly frequent letters and stressing the action should be a last resort. If the…
The monarchy means that prime ministers, who are generally only directly elected by people in a small geographic constituency, get to exercise the power of a head of state, via the monarch.
Even weirder in this case, the prime minister (not directly elected by the general populace) appointed an Governor General (not elected at all) to a position with monarchic powers, and that power was used against him.
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#43I am an avowed republican, I waited until I didn't have to swear alleigence to the crown to take my citizenship in Oz. But I am aware of a 51/49 class split between Liberal and Labor over Gough, and so the belief this "they tried to overthrow Gough" thing translates to "OMG the republicans will win" is ludicrous. Enough people think Gough was bonkers, That even Razor-gang Malcom Frazer was better. I am glued on Gough…
> Enough people think Gough was bonkers
There is much discussion about how in the cold war, a swath of countries from East Germany to China ran as states led by one party. Not much discussed is how many western aligned countries did as well. As the Cold War heated up, from 1949 to 1972, the Liberal coalition ran Australia. In 1972 another party is elected into power, and an extraordinary amount of energy from within Australia and without (UK and US) went into undermining anything but the old one party led coalition. Whitlam was undermined every day for his less than three years in power, then ousted by the retainer of a foreign queen, so that the one party led rule would continue to 1983. Of course the undermined One party led rule from 1949 to 1983, with the one elected other party with less than 3 years ousted by a representative of a queen. These people then had the gall to criticize the one party led coalitions running China and East Germany as being one party states that blocked political pluralism.
The same thing happened in the other western aligned countries in the Pacific during the Cold War - Japan, South Korea. The same case in South Africa, Italy, France etc.
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#44Jenny Hocking is considered by 'serious' historians as a hack. Her biography of Murphy borders on hagiography. The Palace Papers were a dud that she is still attempting to show point to QEII/Buckingham influence in the dismissal. Barwick, who was the chief justice of the high court at the time, said that the constitutional crisis was Whitlam refusing to resign upon failure to secure supply. Kerr dismissing Whitlam was resolving the crisis.
In the end it is academic. The Australian people had their chance to judge the performance of the Whitlam government at the election held 13 December (both Whitlam and Kerr knew that 11 November was effectively the last day that this could be considered due to the requirements for elections to be held) and delivered a resounding message to the former Whitlam government. Even if Whitlam had the half senate election he wanted, it would not have achieved his aims and he would have had to take the issue to a full House election.
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#45I am an avowed republican, I waited until I didn't have to swear alleigence to the crown to take my citizenship in Oz. But I am aware of a 51/49 class split between Liberal and Labor over Gough, and so the belief this "they tried to overthrow Gough" thing translates to "OMG the republicans will win" is ludicrous. Enough people think Gough was bonkers, That even Razor-gang Malcom Frazer was better. I am glued on Gough…
> But I am aware of a 51/49 class split between Liberal and Labor over Gough ..
This may be a somewhat outdated appraisal of the situation.
The number of people voting for neither of those parties (including coalition members) has been steadily growing for years, with the most recent federal election reaching 33%. I recall, more hazily, that the previous federal election (so several prime ministers ago) it was just north of 25%, which even then put us ahead of a lot of ersatz democracies where only two realistic options are presented to the population to pick from.
The idea of being 'glued' to a political party, or a political personality, feels a bit out-dated -- and/or a bit American (no offence intended to our cousins across the pond).
I find the growing popularity of a more nuanced political landscape domestically to be hugely encouraging, but somewhat tempered by a fear this trend can (also) be manipulated, once they work out the algorithms.
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#46Crucial to this piece is "blocking of supply"; unfortunately there is no explanation of what this actually means.
Two things are generally required for a Westminster-system government to have mandate to govern: supply and confidence.
Supply relates to the access to money, specifically through approval of the government budget. If a government has supply, it has an agreement with enough members of the house that it will retain approval to spend money on its policies. If a government loses supply, it loses the support of the house to spend any state money.
Similarly, confidence relates to support that the government represents the will of the people. Just as with supply, a government must secure a vote from enough members that they will support the government’s actions (they have confidence in the government). When they talk about a “vote of no confidence” it specifically means voting to remove support of the government in this way.
Further info can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_and_supply
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#47Crucial to this piece is "blocking of supply"; unfortunately there is no explanation of what this actually means.
supply of funds. The government needs to bring an appropriations bill to explain how all of the tax revenue will be spent. This bill then needs to pass the House of Representatives and the senate. At the time, the liberal government controlled the senate and refused to pass the appropriations bill, hence blocking the supply of funds to government programs.
Subsequent to this, there is an agreement that appropriations bills are split in 2. One bill is to continue funding from last years budget (on the basis that it was approved, and passed both houses, and therefore those things need to continue to be funded), and appropriations bill #2 which is all of the new initiatives. This way, government will continue to function, but the government and opposition can still debate and argue over changes.
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#48People may remember that the CIA also had a hand in this sordid episode, documented in the movie The Falcon and the Snowman (based on a real case) where someone working in signals (much like Edward Snowden) watching all the telexes go by realised that the US was taking part in the downfall of another democratic government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_and_the_Snowman
During the 60s an 70s, taking part in the downfall of democratic governments (see South America) was an usual Tuesday for the CIA
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I think having a nominal monarch for people to form parasocial relationships with rather than getting overly attached to any given politician has its advantages. But (note, UK person here, add salt accordingly) it seems like you could retain that part while also stripping any actual power - i.e. 'power-wise practically a republic, emphasis on the -nominal- in my first sentence.'
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).
Re: The Queen’s Coup
#50In a British style constitutional monarchy, it is the job of the monarch to resolve these sorts of stalemates. The title is absurd.