Goss to end royal trappings in Qld

By Bill Mason

BRISBANE -- Queensland Premier Wayne Goss has entered the republican debate with plans to remove the oath of allegiance to the queen in state jurisdictions, and to remove references to the crown from legislation.

Politicians, jurors, barristers and police will no longer swear to be faithful to the queen and her heirs and successors.

Goss announced cabinet's decision on March 29. It sparked an angry response from royalists. Former governor Sir Walter Campbell called it “emotive political garbage”, and state opposition leader Rob Borbidge said Goss was “blowing his brains out”.

Goss said the change, to begin this year, was intended to encourage Australians to identify themselves as Australians, rather than as an appendage of a “benevolent monarch across the waves”.

Goss is a relative latecomer to the republican cause, having refused to comment when Prime Minister Paul Keating raised the issue at various times in the past year.

Some unkind commentators have suggested the move is an attempt to show that the Queensland Labor government is capable of initiating action on something after all.

Nevertheless, any change which accelerates an end to the anachronistic monarchy in Australia is to be welcomed. At the same time, the debate should be broadened to discuss how to introduce genuine popular control of government.

A truly democratic republic would mean an elective system based on proportional representation, with right of recall of all elected officials.

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