So, ummm, have I got this right?
Scott Ludlam, Greens senator, has to immediately stand down because, it turns out, he is also a New Zealand citizen. And of course, our constitution demands that if you are a servant of the people, you should not, cannot, must not, have even the tiniest whiff of divided loyalties. Out you go!
But hang on. What about the criteria to be our head of state? In this case, the constitution demand that he or she be 100 per cent English! (Oh alright, with some German lineage thrown in, and perhaps some Greek.) At least, the constitution demands that we find our heads of state from this one English family.
Is there anything wrong with this picture?
Resoundingly, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
It was fine for 1901, when the one thing that united all the disparate colonies in Oz, was our common loyalty to the crown. It worked for yonks. But now, in 2017, can we not call this for what it is – absurd?
Yes, I chair the Australian Republic Movement. But I do not say this as an “anti-Elizabethan.” Perish the thought. As ever, it is not about Her Majesty, it is about us.
And I do not say it as a plea that we should abandon the provision which demands no dual citizenship – even though in, the Australian constitution, the wording actually reads “States shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia …” and there is no nation on earth whose interests are so closely aligned with our own, across all things bar the 50 metre line, as New Zealand …
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Examiner
