Contrary to his convictions ARM chairman Major-General Michael Keating must have had one or two or more toasts in honour of Queen’s Birthday. How else is it possible, that he sees double figures? According to the traditional and tired pro-republican Queen’s Birthday article in today’s Sunday Age, he claimed: "Sixty to 80 per cent of people are republicans and half of them vote for the Coalition." These figures are about double of the usual republican paid opinion polls and have nothing to do with reality. But wishful thinking characterizes the Australian republican existence.
Of course Queen’s Birthday is always a day of hope for republicans. They cling to the idea that they can raise enough discomfort with Australia’s oldest holiday to fill their ranks with fighters for constitutional change. This year’s republican hope lies with the opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey, “who has taken over from Malcolm Turnbull as the torchbearer for republican sentiment within the Liberal Party” as The Sunday Age put it. However, Mr. Hockey poured water into the republican wine and said the Coalition was unlikely to adopt a party position on the republic but leave it as a matter for individuals.
No progress for republicanism in Australia. Happy Queen’s Birthday, folks!!
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3 comments:
60 to 80%!?!? That's absolutely ludicrous. Shows how truly out of touch with "modern Australia" republicans are.
Well, it looks like that damned UMR poll has finally been released (http://umrresearch.com.au/doc/republicmedia2009june.pdf). I think that very model of a modern major-general is making an ass of himself by quoting numbers that, when you actually look at them, have no meaning whatsoever.
That's what we on the internet call an "ass pull".
Let the referendum come. They'll lose, just like in '99.
Exactly - if there's a single reason I would support a referendum, it would be to show the republicans once and for all (or should it be twice and for all?) that Australians don't want their republic.
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