In Melbourne: Honouring the Queen of Australia

After the Royal Over-seas League - Victorian Branch held a lunch a week ago in honour of this year's Queen's Birthday holiday, The Australian Monarchist League celebrated the official birthday of the Queen of Australia together with her 60th coronation anniversary on 14th June.


Both speaker, Sophie Mirabella MP, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science, and Philip Benwell MBE, AML National Chair, praised Her Majesty's tireless workload, which she continues despite her 87 years. Sophie Mirabella stressed the continuity of the Australian Monarchy by pointing out that during Her Majesty's reign, she had 11 Australian prime ministers - and 17 leaders of the opposition. Ms. Mirabella, who had been an active member of the No campaign for the 1999 referendum on the introduction of a republic in Australia, mentioned in her speech this year's proposed change to the constitution.

For the Election Day, 14th September 2013, the present government - and most members of the opposition -is proposing a referendum to change the Australian Constitution to create a third tier of government with local councils and to empower Canberra to bypass the States and give taxpayer monies direct to this new tier of government. In 1942, the States had income-taxing powers but temporarily loaned them to Canberra to fund the war effort. Those powers were never handed back and Canberra today uses taxpayer money to force the States to do its bidding.

Sophie Mirabella MP during her speech to the members and friends of the Australian Monarchist League in Melbourne.

While the Liberal Opposition in Parliament agreed to proposed referendum and front benchers are bound to this agreement, Liberal back benchers are allowed to campaign against it. Ms. Mirabella, being a member of the shadow cabinet, made it clear that she will not take part in a No campaign, but she herself would vote no, should the referendum actually be held on 14th September. However, she did welcome the Western Australian and Victorian Liberal Councils’ decision to incorporate a NO vote in their How-to-vote cards on 14th September.

The Australian Monarchist League established a referendum campaign to provide information to those concerned about this referendum and stated: “We are not in opposition to any other group that may be opposing this move to centralise more power into Canberra.” Both the local government referendum information website, a Facebook and a Twitter account have been set up.