Granted, Australians openly discussed dumping the monarchy during QEII’s reign. The idea was, at the time, that once QEII passed away, Australia would make some big moves to become a republic. In the first six months of King Charles’s reign, the Australian republican movement is… moving slowly but steadily. It feels like public opinion in Oz is slowly turning against the monarchy, and King Charles isn’t going to appear on some of Australia’s money. Now the new “high commissioner” from Australia – meaning, he’s the equivalent of Australia’s ambassador to Great Britain – is telling the British media that it’s “inevitable” that Australia will become a republic. Smith is still confident that Australia will use Charles as their head of state though?

Australia becoming a republic and scrapping the monarchy is “inevitable” even though Australians are proud to have the King as their head of state, the country’s new high commissioner has said. In his first interview since moving to London, Stephen Smith said most British people would be “indifferent” to Australia getting rid of the monarchy and said it would not damage the countries’ relationship. Smith, 67, insisted Australians were “absolutely” proud to have the King as their head of state. Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, has confirmed that he will attend the coronation on May 6.

“There is a lot of affection and respect for the monarchy in Australia,” Smith said. “That affection and respect hasn’t gone away because of Australia contemplating from time to time what it should do about its constitutional arrangements.”

Nevertheless, Smith, an avowed republican, said it was only a matter of time before the monarchy was abolished. “My personal view is it’s inevitable. But how that’s progressed is entirely a matter for the Australian government of the day,” he said.

Anthony Albanese, who has long voiced his opposition to the monarchy, choked back tears this month when announcing the terms of a referendum to be held this year that could create a representative body of indigenous people in Australia, something that Smith said was a priority in Canberra. The vote could pave the way for further plebiscites on other constitutional matters.

“Australia does not have referendums on an all too regular basis,” Smith said. “Whether down the track there is a future referendum associated with Australia and the UK’s constitutional arrangements, only time will tell.” Smith was previously foreign secretary and defence secretary under the Labor governments from 2007 to 2013.

[From The Times]

Wait, is he saying that it’s “inevitable” that Australia will dump the British monarchy, or that it’s “inevitable” that the monarchy will be abolished entirely? Honestly, I don’t envy Australian politicians trying to untangle all of this, same for Jamaica and all of the countries which have the British monarch as their head of state. It must be such an ass ache to have to rewrite or amend parts of their constitutions and bureaucratically extricate themselves from the ties to the monarchy. In Australia’s case, I think they’ve finally got the man for the job in Anthony Albanese – he’s not a fire-breathing anti-monarchist, he seems like such a mild-mannered man who is simply saying to his people “we don’t need the monarchy, we should absolutely make the effort to dump these people.”

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, Cover Images.