Contributed from NSW

A big effort is being made to humanise the British crown and its continuing relationship with Australia. But it’s impossible to prettify what is fundamentally ugly. The British monarchy represents what holds Australia back from our potential. The British monarchy is rooted in the legacy of colonialism and the preservation of the privilege of a few to the cost of the majority.

It was under the British flag that Captain Cook took possession of land for the Crown. This was justified by the false claim that this was a land not occupied by human beings. Terra Nullias was the term used. First Nations peoples were regarded as animals.

Land was taken, at first to house convicts and use them as slave labour for a unique slavery-based capitalism, which morphed to feed raw materials to the British industrial revolution. What had been a collection of Frist Nations was replaced by a system of a minority ruling class and a majority of those who are ruled. The monarchy was and continues to be an important institution for maintaining this class system.

Senator Lydia Thorpe confronts King Charles and tells him “You are not my king’

The class system was maintained to ensure the power of a few over the interests of the Crown, governors, the military officers, the new land grabbers, and the British banks financing everything. Today’s class system takes the shape of other industries, and the role of the British crown is to re-enforce it.

This does nothing to benefit the majority. It does even less for the Indigenous people of this land. The monarchy is complicit in their dispossession and mass murder. It has served to exploit non-indigenous Australia.

The Eureka rebellion of 1856 had a definite republican flavour, which led to the movement that culminated in Federation and the birth of Australia into a nation. This rise to nationhood was incredibly popular. Federation was a movement of many, who participated in series of conventions elected leaders to take to voice of nationhood to London.

The movement was compromised. The independence allowed was only partial, and the British Crown remained sovereign over the former colonies now merged into a single nation. The new Australian Constitution allowed by the British Parliament limited the scope for the new nation.

Among the settlers were those few who benefited from colonialism, and later, the ongoing ties with the monarchy. They exist today. Like those who came before, they genuflect and sing praises to the monarch and privilege, and wail about the horror, when someone comes into their cosy turf and causes an upset.

The legacy of colonialism must not be spoken about. To do so is attacked as bad manners.

This is how they dealt with Lidia Thorpe’s interruption by speaking out about and interrupting King Charles’ speech. She carried the voice of the First Nations, and by implication, of most Australians.

Continuing the monarchy is a barrier to true democracy. running counter to the principle that a people should choose their leaders rather than having them thrust upon them.  Australia is republican by nature. Differences centre on whether a change should be cosmetic and do no more than change the title of the Governor General, or that it should lead to more substantial change.

King Charles’s tour should not be taking place. The only good thing about it, is that it has once again raised the argument about the monarchy’s future and raised activity for bringing about its end.