Mark McKenna has been the most prominent Australian Republican historian in the dead tree media during the last fifteen years. This book, Australian Republicanism: A Reader was edited by Mark and Wayne Hudson. It can be probably viewed as a primary source complement to his book, The Captive Republic .

I picked up my copy from the National Museum. The book is not new, having been published in 2003, but has a such a wealth of historical material in it, that it will not age, nor become out-dated quickly. The editors divide the book up into;

• A Deep Undercurrent of Republicanism that will Someday Burst Forth and Astonish the World (1788-1856)
• A Commonwealth for the British Race, a Commonwealth Under the Crown (1856-1901)
• Still Captive After All These Years: Imagining The Republic (1901-2001)

The first section contains wondrous sources such as Deniehy's Bunyip Aristocracy speech, Harpur's Tree of Liberty, Dunmore-Lang's Deceleration of Independence for Victoria, plus numerous other articles from newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald and People's Advocate. I am a fan of Harpurian Republicanism, and this section contains much of the exuberance and hope of republicans who saw New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland making the transition from colony to Republic.

The Commonwealth Debate

The second section is dominated by the conflict between the loyalists and the republicans. Ultimately the loyalists enforced their views on Australia through the constitution in 1901 and effectively made the monarchy and Australian nationalism entwined. Often this was achieved through brutish and illiberal means .

Nationalism was often mixed with racial purity, especially to do with the Briton race. This period contains the nationalist writing of Henry Lawson, George Black and William Lane. For instance an article in the highly pro-republican and pro-nationalist Bulletin was titled, "A Republic Without The Chinese".

But this was not unique to the republicans, the monarchists and loyalists were just as heavily of the Briton view - one of the reasons the Australian Constitution does not have a Bill of Rights is so the government wasn't restricted constitutionally against discriminating against the Chinese.

This section also covers the republicanism in Queensland during the second half of the 1800s. In Charters Towers the firebrand Frederick Vosper ran the local labor newspaper. Queensland being provincial and independent minded even back then, had republicans in all walks of life, from workers, to writers, to judges. McKenna notes that Vosper's writing often made Eureka look tame;

The men [shearers strike of 1881] - they must either have BREAD or BLOOD - WOOL OR HEADS - and if the government be not careful they will have BOTH ... The government ought to know that in no country is revolution so easy as here; and once let the masses be roused, then good-bye to capitalistic domination and the sham royalty that is inflicted upon us now, and hurrah for the Republic.

To be fair to Vosper, Horace Tozer enacted laws that allowed strike organisers to be shot on sight . Despite Tozer making the government of Queensland and the Squattocracy an easy target, Vosper had a revolutionaries zeal, he claimed to have been involved in two revolutions in Bolivia before coming to Australia. Despite this this, the journal he edited was distributed widely in Brisbane, and was met with approval by other Queensland republicans.

Inevitability

The third section contains the republicanism after the establishment of federation. It all became inevitable - an inevitability that is yet to be achieved. There is some source material from the first half of the century, and a good chunk from the 1999 referendum.

Great collection of source material. The only thing I would ask for is Mark McKenna to either set up his own website/blog or join an existing one (such as SSR) and start writing on Republican history for the internet as well as dead-tree media. His voice is needed on the internet.

cam

Peter Costello on an Australian Republic ; "I think in 2106 we will be a republic because I think in our minds and our imaginations we're already there - we think like that ... The question is how do you produce a legal and constitutional model which will win the acceptance of the Australian people."

The Inevitable Republic

Mark MacKenna in his book, The Captive Republic covers how political and public figures since the 1800s have claimed that a republic was inevitable. So inevitable in fact, we are still waiting for it, and Costello has now put that inevitability off until the twenty-second century.

Costello argues that a legal and constitutional model needs to be developed to win acceptance. One of the purposes of South Sea Republic is to create a wider republican doctrine that goes beyond constitutional issues and form a wider political framework.

In my opinion the republic in Australia has been undercut by what I call a 'boo' republic notion which is one of minimalism. Just change the name of the constitution to a republican one!

This is the path that Dutton and Horne took, as well as Turnbull and the ARM. It nearly worked in 1999 as Australians are republican by nature but the 'boo' or the yelling of 'republic' didn't get over the line.

The problem in my opinion is that there was no grounding for the political philosophy other than remove the Queen and change the name.

Republicanism is a set of philosophies, doctrines and practices which have been developed over the years. Rather than exporting these in ad-hoc and arbitrarily they need to be explored, developed, adapted and applied in a provincial Australian permutation to ensure the most efficient form of social organisation in the Australian federal and state forms of government.

However McKenna warns against enunciating it as a 'true' form of republicanism ;

In many ways, the history of Australian republicanism is the story of Australian politicians, journalists and political activists, drawing on these models [British, American and French] and often taking one set of associations - the 'true' republic, into the public domain.

As the Constitutional Fun Challenge on this site showed, Australian Republicans are starting to think beyond the British, American and French models.

In addition we are questioning those models and scrutinising them ever more closely for their benefits, weaknesses and faults.

The 'bearded men' wrote a poor constitution that is static to change except in the hands of the High Court. It is an inferior constitutional model.

The challenge for sites such as this is create a fourth republican model, an Australian one, which captures the public imagination, and acceptance. One which is rooted in the republican philosophies in the past, but advances those doctrines to modern technology and needs - serving as the platform for on-going maximum liberty and prosperity.

cam