The Prince and his critic - who is the real kink?
Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper The Australian rides in with a new attack on Prince Charles. This time it is Frank Devine who decrees Kinky King Charlie to get our republic across the line. “When Prince Charles turned 60 on November 14 he expressed a wish to speak out on public issues when he becomes king. Since Charles has a lot of kinky green convictions and almost Keatingesque views on architecture and urban planning, this gives one pause. … Whose public issues does he plan to speak out on? I suppose English issues will be OK within reason, and maybe Welsh ones, since he has put in a long stint as prince of this fading rugby power. But no English king in his right mind would speak out on Scottish issues, such as devolution or Sean Connery …”

What did The Prince of Wales actually say? Devine leaves us in the dark and doesn’t go into details. In a BBC documentary broadcast on the occasion of his 60th birthday the following sentences, which could have led Frank Devine to his conclusions, were said according to British media: “He conceded that many people thought that he 'meddled' in issues but he preferred to call it "convening power" by bringing together people who could change things.

Asked whether he would continue to be outspoken on big issues such as the environment when he succeeded to the throne, he said: "I don't know, I don't know - probably not the same way. But I like to think perhaps that after all this, eventually people might realise that some of the things I've been trying to do aren't all that mad and that I might still have some 'convening power' that could be put to use."

How could Frank Devine interpret these statements as a will for political interferece he seems to fear so much?

Or was it Mr. Busybody aka Jonathan Dimbleby who claimed in The Daily Telegraph: “The Prince will break with the tradition which has seen monarchs, including the Queen, remain publicly silent on matters of national and international importance.” There is nothing that would justify Frank Devine’s assumption, that as King of Australia Prince Charles would be a partisan Monarch. Jonathan Dimbleby is a book author who uses every microphone, every TV camera to put himself in the limelight. Since when is he a senior political analyst or advisor to The Prince of Wales? For Frank Devine he must be his master’s voice.

However, the first lines of Devine’s opinion piece show the direction of his attack and give us a clue to what the real worry of Frank Devine and his media moghul were. Devine accuses Prince Charles of “kinky green convictions and almost Keatingesque views on architecture and urban planning”

Prince Charles is passionate about fighting climate change. To describe his worries as kinky can only come from someone who believes, Kevin Rudd could be successful in reducing Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions. Prince Charles is strongly against genetically manipulated (GM) crops – as far as I can see, this subject is heavily discussed in Australia as well. The Murdoch paper’s are not in the forefront to stop GM crops. Why not listen to what the Prince has to say, before you ridicule him as kinky? This goes hand in hand with Prince Charles’ organic farming and his new agricultural methods, which could only help Australian farmers to tackle climate change and preserve export markets. True, Prince Charles has not love lost for modern architecture, but who really has besides the professionals?

Devine therefore hopes: “So tenuous is monarchism's grip on Australians that the personal popularity of the throne's incumbent will probably have a major influence on our deciding whether we want any more of the kings and queens stuff.” Fortunately it will not be the editorialists of this country who decide about the Monarchy and King Charles, but the Australian people. However, the millionaires are eager to put one of their mates on a presidential chair.

After all, who is Frank Devine?
According to his own website he has been employed by a variety of Murdoch media for a long time. Green Left is not very happy about their republican, heavily pro-nuclear power comrade in arms: “Frank Devine, the right-wing journalist from the Australian newspaper, gave a rant about press reporting of nuclear issues and the Luddite zombies, frauds and zealots in the anti-nuclear movement. Undoubtedly the highlight of the conference was seeing Devine fall off the stage after giving his talk.”

On the other hand, ultra pro-big business republicans like Gerald Henderson of The Sydney Institute praised a fellow conservative: “Once upon a time there were few, if any, conservative voices in the Australian media. Not any more. Now there is a plethora of political conservatives. To name names – Piers Akerman, Andrew Bolt, Frank Devine, Miranda Devine, P.P. McGuinness, Christopher Pearson, Paul Sheehan, Imre Salusinsky."

The Prince of Wales is ahead of his time, but people realize that his ideas are a welcome contribution to the pressing problems of our time. Conservatives hate him for that and progressive people shy away from accepting him as a useful ally. This will not stop him to speak out. And we need his voice loud and clear.

Prince Charles in defence of the small farmers

Prince Charles, the future King of Australia, has hit out again. To no one’s surprise he, the organic farmer, dislikes genetically manipulated (GM) food. Being no politician he can speak out freely and call it what it is: "a gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong". Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster".


"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said.

"What we should be talking about is food security not food production - that is what matters and that is what people will not understand. And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."

Small farmers, in particular, would be the victims of "gigantic corporations" taking over the mass production of food.

The interview was given to The Daily Telegraph and was partly reported by The Age.

More Australian Context
Australia’s future King also refers to his realm: "Look at Western Australia," he said. "Huge salinisation problems. I have been there, seen it — some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture.

"If you are not working with natural assistance you cause untold problems, which become very expensive and very difficult to undo. It places impossible burdens on nature and leads to accumulating problems which become more difficult to sort out," he said according to The Age.

Prince Charles’ remarks are highly welcome in Australia. Victoria’s Labor government removed the four-year ban on growing genetically manipulated canola in November 2007 despite resistence in the Labor caucus. Premier John Brumby ignored the opposition of “about half of Labor’s 74 MPs” (The Age 27 Nov. 2007): “This is Brumby’s arrogance and cash-through style at play here, said a Labor MP who declined to be named. “He’s good at numbers but he can’t read people.” My local Labor MP to whom I wrote to ask her if she was among the opponents of GM crops did not reply to my letter. I can only assume, that she is supporting Mr. Brumby. Well, Ms. Barker, food lovers cannot support you in the future.

Australia is worse off than other countries, especially the EU, since there is no labelling of GM ingredients in food products. With Labor in power nationally as well as in all states you would have thought, protecting “Australian working families” would be a priority, but you’re wrong. It is still business that is protected by Labor. Why is it possible that food producers in the EU can include information on GM content in their nutritional information - and in Australia that is too difficult? Or too risky?

Good to have the heir to the throne who speaks out against GM food.