"Rabid Monarchists"

The Victorian Attorney-General and Acting Premier Rob Hulls has a problem. He does not like his actions being questioned. After his announcement two days ago of the replacement of the Queen with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) from New Year's Day was received with blanket opposition, he hits back at his Monarchist critics inside Victoria and beyond her borders. He claimed "rabid Monarchists" were wrong to suggest the change was part of a conspiracy to undermine the Monarchy.

Oh yeah?

It is not as if Monarchists have no reason to see in his action an improper way of removing the Queen from our legal system and replace her by a government appointed DPP.

And all this was done in secrecy, announced a fortnight before it will come into force and before the Christmas holidays will stop all political action. Honi soit qui mal y pense, one could say with the motto of The Most Noble Order of the Garter ("Shame on him who thinks ill of it").

A fellow Monarchist remarked in a forum: “Mr Hulls’ justification suggests a poor understanding of the Australian and Victorian constitutions, the Australia Acts of 1986, and the role of the Australian Crown. Or perhaps it is just a blatant attempt to cover up a personal republican agenda? Either way it does not inspire much confidence in the State’s Attorney-General.”

Today The Age wrote on this matter:

“Mr Hulls, an avowed republican, hit back, saying Monarchists were inventing ludicrous conspiracy theories when all he was trying to do was modernise the state's justice system.

The Victorian convener of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, Brett Hogan said, there were good reasons for criminal legal proceedings to be brought in the name of the Queen.

'Having legal cases go forward on behalf of the Queen or the Crown reflects the fact that the case against an accused is pursued on behalf of the state as a whole, not the person who currently happens to hold the office of Director of Public Prosecutions,' he said.”

You actually do not have to assume a conspiracy theory, just look at the actions of the Labor governments. For instance I find it appalling that the Victorian government made a deal with the private (!) consortium AquaSure to build a desalination plant and agreed to release law enforcement data – including images, audio, video and “data related to individuals” to AguaSure. That’s a new kind of public private partnership.

And the latest move of the Rudd government to censure the internet is equally boiling my blood. On Tuesday afternoon, the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, announced he would introduce legislation before next year's elections forcing ISPs to block a secret blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.

The former High Court judge and ardent Monarchist Michael Kirby has criticised the Federal Government's internet censorship agenda, saying it could stop the "Berlin Walls of the future" from being knocked down. In an interview with Fairfax Radio Kirby said some circles feared the controversial policy would be "the thin end of the wedge of the Government moving in to regulating the actual internet itself".

"Once you start doing that you get into the situation of Burma and Iran where the Government is taking control of what people hear and what information they get," he said, adding that Australia's approach hadn't been attempted anywhere else in the world.

Is that really all “ludicrous conspiracy theories” or just fear of what may come up next that the control freaks in the Victorian and the Federal governments want to impose on us? Freedom wears a Crown, not a Phrygian cap.