And the winner is ...
Princess Anne!

Did you hear the sigh of relief? It came from the republican corner. And it heaved, when the Princess Royal left Australia. The republicans have the scene to themselves again. Princess Anne’s stay in Australia was a success. Or, as The HeraldSun wrote: Princess Anne proves a winner!

The Princess Royal spent a scorching summer day touring the small community of Wandong, north of Melbourne, where one in ten homes were lost to the Black Saturday bush fires.

After visiting the local Country Fire Authority station, the Wandong Primary School and the community relief centre Princess Anne’s spokeswoman Ailsa Anderson announced the personal donation would be made upon her return to Britain.

The success of this royal visit explains why there are not as many stays of our Royal Family as could be wished. While republicans claim: “They aren’t interested in Australia”, the Victorian bushfires and the response of The Queen of Australia, Prince Charles and Princess Anne as well as other royals prove the opposite.

Therefore it should be recalled that they do not come uninvited. If we want to see them more often on our shores, politicians must send out invitations. As we all know, politicians like to be treated like stars, quite rightly they consider the royals a crowd puller, taking away the attraction from politicians.

Canadian Constitutional Monarchy
The Constitutional Monarchy in Canada is facing a similar problem. On 22nd February 2009 The Globe & Mail wrote:

"The Harper government has rebuffed efforts to have the Prince of Wales visit Canada. The same, of course, applies to the Queen.

"The Canadian government in fact has shown much less enthusiasm for visits by Canada's current head of state and her heir apparent than has the republic to the south. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the Mayor of Quebec City, and the province of Nova Scotia have all asked Ottawa to invite the Queen in recent years, and all were turned down by Canadian Heritage.

"The Globe on Saturday reported that The Prince of Wales, and various organizations he is associated with, have also been seeking permission to undertake a visit, and once again the requests have been shelved. The situation is such that the Liberal era of Jean Chrétien is now remembered by loyalists as a golden age for the Canadian Crown."

Of course the problem is the same here as well as on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Politicians think they must appear in every evening news with a feel good story. Instead they fail to guess that it is more their successful governing that will convince people to vote for them, but not their constantly children kissing or hugging.

Chinese Constitutional Monarchy?
It is interesting that Daniel A. Bell, professor of political theory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, published in The New York Times of 20th February 2009 a summary of a discussion with his students on President Obama. It turned out they had a better sense how a nation should be governed than most Australian politicians:

"We discussed, only half-jokingly, the possibility that China should adopt some form of constitutional monarchy, so that the public could project its emotions on a symbolic leader while evaluating the de facto political leader’s performance more rationally."

But the Australian politicians never learn from their mistakes, nevertheless an invitation to The Prince of Wales should be sent out as soon as possible.

Taking the Canadian example, I'd like to know, how often did The Queen or Prince Charles ask to come to Australia and an invitation was not forthcoming?