Aussies Would Bid Her Majesty Farewell : A good-natured movement presses for the former colony’s full independence

When Australia became independent in 1901, it became, in the eyes of some of its citizens, only semi-independent. As did other former British colonies, it retained Britain’s monarch as its head of state. To this day, Australia has “royal” regiments; the queen’s initials adorn its mailboxes; the queen’s face gazes benignly from its currency, and the Union Jack occupies the upper left corner of its flag.

If these links are merely sentimental, another link has legal teeth. Britain appoints a governor general of Australia; and in 1975, Governor General Sir John Kerr shocked Australia by dissolving its Parliament, then deadlocked over the national budget, and bringing down the government of then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

Australia’s current prime minister, Paul Keating, who was a junior member of Whitlam’s government, has never forgotten the day. Keating, elected prime minister in 1991 on hispromise to turn Australia into a republic, unveiled a plan this week for a referendum on the monarchy in 1998 or 1999 and a final separation from Britain by 2001. Though the monarchy has its supporters in Australia, particularly among military veterans (this despite the legend of Britain fighting “to the last Australian” at the World War I battle of Gallipoli), a clear majority of Australians seems to favor full independence.

They favor it more jauntily than angrily, however. The founder of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) is Thomas Keneally, surely the merriest of contemporary novelists. Though Keneally, an indefatigable debater of Australian monarchists, takes his cause seriously, his way of handling all serious matters is by kindling a good humor that charms the coldest from their coldness. Keneally’s mood has so affected Australian republicanism that London’s Guardian newspaper could write a bit wonderingly last week: “Any expectations of more ‘Pom bashing’ by Mr. Keating were dashed by a surprisingly conciliatory tone towards Britain and the monarchy.”

This is how it will all end, we suspect: Not with a bang, with a chuckle.