AND speaking of constitutional conventions, far too little attention was given last week to Anthony Albanese’s argument that assurances King Charles gave in his first speech as sovereign to eschew interference of any kind in politics should not extend to so-called climate change. “That’s a matter for him,” he said, premising his generous warrant on the fatuous claim that climate, far from being political, “is about humanity and about our very quality of life and survival.” If accepted, this Albo-bubble would not only trash the conventions demarcating the rights of parliament and monarch, it would also scuttle the Labor Party’s purist case against Sir John Kerr. Just last year, the Guardian revealed that on several occasions the Queen used her prerogative to withhold consent from bills until they were amended to her liking. This was presented as scandalous. Strange, then, that Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston haven’t noticed the Albanese “blunder.” Or do they believe the Governor-General can now express his personal wishes about legislation?
Australian royalists aren’t concerned either, apparently. Perhaps overly-invested in mourning Her late Majesty, they should be publicising the implications of Mr Albanese soliciting royal favour for pet-left causes. Can you think of any currently topical ramifications of affording a voice to an extra-parliamentary locus of authority on so broad a pretext? If justifications as generic as humanity, life and survival can activate a contemporary King’s remit to weigh in, is it not asinine to claim that an Aboriginal Voice would be restricted to racial subjects? Might not the High Court take note of such a disparity? Could it not also be protested that the Prime Minister has entrusted to King Charles a roving brief he insists blackfellas will never have? Is that not… racist? To the extent that the PM’s solecism was considered at all, it rhymes with his customary game of pretending global warming, like gravity, is incontestable. That the Opposition lets him get away with this proves that in modern politics it’s better to be beneath contempt than Buridan’s ass.
Thank you C.L.
Meanwhile here’s what we’ve all been expecting from our ABC: an extreme left anticolonialist rant against the monarchy. Remember, the evil West is the source of all the world’s problems.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-18/queen-elizabeth-ii-empire-colonialism-history/101430296
They have to keep bringing up the Mau Mau rebellion because in the vast majority of the colonies the transition to independence was peaceful. The communists facilitated most of the violent clashes. I’ll wait for the Tramp to provide a few examples where this wasn’t the case and miss the point about the vast majority.
Thanks OL, a one sided and fact challenged rant we’ve become accustomed to seeing from the collective.
Perhaps the only fully truthful part was this quote telling us what they are really aiming up for with the voice.
Climate change “not political” according to Albo.
LOL.
Then why do pollies like him use it as wedge issue against their political opponents?
The King isn’t going to be different in Australia or the UK so Albo’s message is irrelevant and basically nonsense. As if the UK media would let him get away with saying something political in Australia…
The trick, Ando, is pretending ‘climate change’ isn’t political.
Most of the media would go along with that.
Anything is possible in a post truth world, apparently a sanctuary city rejecting illegal immigrants as human trash is not actually racist, but the people who helped them get there are.
I wonder what odds I might have got on Dan Andrews making a billion dollar tribute to the queen one might have been able to wangle before her death. I expect they would have been pretty substantial.
A reader, I meant.
You are correct CL, man made climate change is a political belief not a fact.
As Cardinal Pell pointed out when Laudato Si was published, the science can change.
Charles pledges to protect the space for religious faith:
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/15882/king-charles-pledges-to-protect-the-space-for-faith-
Expect another paroxysm from the woke left.
Charles can have as many policy choices as he wants. He cannot do anything about it as he is an unelected figurehead. If he tried there would be no monarchy.
As generous as we’re all disposed to be right now, it is necessary to point out that Charles is not a religious leader. Pope Leo X gave Henry VIII the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ in 1521 for his pamphlet, Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (“Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther”). Famously – and in well-known circumstances – Henry later proved himself unworthy of the honour. Pope Paul III nullified the title in 1544. It was then ‘bestowed’ anew by Parliament in the same year.
It is therefore fake.
In any case, to interpret the title to mean defender of all faiths is syncretism – which is a heresy.
I note also – because it seems relevant – that the man who lunged at the Queen’s coffin on Saturday was 20 year-old east Londoner, Muhammad Khan.
It’s a weird thing how little communist revolutionaries know about power and how it’s wielded and applied. Midwit white collar middle class buffoons they all are, they really do think all power comes from the barrel of a gun – magically brought into being by hundreds of thousands of pieces of unread documents generated in parliaments by their fellow midwits each year. Which is understandable I guess, given that’s the world in which they personally live: being meekly bossed around by police, HR departments…their wives, themselves making a living churning out irrelevant words and numbers on paper while convinced they’re doing something useful.
You’d think though, that of all the people in the world, an Australian boomer trot who lived through Whitlam’s dismissal, would know how much power the unelected figurehead truly has.
Albanese doubles down:
I can hardly wait to watch all the politicians driving their electric cars to Canberra because flying there will kill the planet.
CL,
Charles cannot do anything with policy and if he said anything contradicting government policy he would be asked to abdicate.
There is a BIG difference between being King and Prince of Wales apart from remaining a billionaire
Albanese is saying that – for example – the King and Governor-General may now speak out against anything that involves life, humanity or survival.
So it would be OK for them to denounce abortion.
If they did, it doesn’t take much to imagine the furore from the left, including Albo.
Despite Albo’s special pleading, climate change has been the hot political issue for many years now.
CL,
you do not seem to understand.
He is a figurehead.
He can support any policy he wants to however if those policies contradict the government in power he won’t be King for very long.
no-one pays attention to what a Prince of wales says. they will pay attention to what a King says.
Good.
I’m glad our monarch had the sense to protect her own interests. The only downside is it should have been news on the day.
This might have reminded her subjects that they are subjected to ridiculous laws every single day, and when they are able to see the monarch tell parliament that things have become unworkable then they themselves will realise that the punitive life they are subjected to by a body that is far more tyrannical than a monarch could ever be may have changed the collectivefor the better.
This maltreatment by those that become the upper crust should be the continuing subject in their 3rd eye and should be rejected.
All dressed in the clothe of democracy because we’ve traded the wisdom of crowds for the wisdom of those that win a popularity contest and the eternal 40% that want to be told how to live their life and raise horrible children that become community tyrants. And begat begat begat
The more I think about Theatus and Plato’s call to his students to wonder if democracy is the better course the more I realise that the modern person is ungovernable because left to themselves the populace can not appoint an alpha.
Increasingly they will not suffer what they need to hear.
We had the absurd situation where the Prime minister of the country said that the nation can not afford to fund itself, when applied to the individual one can not fund his self, and that basic truth got shouted down because they had a problem with Abbot.
I apologise for the rant
A good dose of Karma in Dan Andrews being the one to feel the pointy end of the voice.
No need to apologise, Ragu.
Much valued and much appreciated,
That’s the big hope; that some good can come out of this celebration of what is supposed to be all that’s best about British democracy.
We’ll see. I’m sceptical, to say the least.
Yes.
A nation that been shown that even the most privileged end up in a box will go back to homeostatic business as usual faster that one can say sassafrass