A republican Australia...

and appointments to the Council of the National Gallery

My column in today's Australian Financial Review was on the republic. I've always thought the notion of Australia becoming a republic is a bit like having bamboo in your garden. It's hard to get rid of. Just when you thought it had gone away, back it comes. So the subject is on the agenda for a few days as King Charles comes to visit the country. Republicanism is these days talked about nostalgically. It’s something from Australia in the 1970s and 1980s - when the country was very different. Republicanism sits in the display cupboard with flags of boxing Kangaroos, Foster's Lager, and World Series cricket.

What could be called 'first wave' republicanism from fifty years ago was based on the idea that Australia was a good country and being a republic would make us an even better country. The republicanism of Patrick White and Manning Clark was proudly nationalistic - even, dare it be said - patriotic. For them, the republic was about breaking ties with Britain and confidently becoming fully self-governing.

On Australia Day in 1988, 2.5 million people attended the biggest event in Australian history. It was the celebration of the Bicentenary on Sydney Harbour. In my column, I quoted some of what The Sydney Morning Herald said about the event the next day. There's no way today the SMH would talk about Australia as it did 36 years ago.

Prince Charles stood in Sydney Cove where, thanks to a decision of his British royal forebears, a new nation was founded on January 26, 1788, and said: 'As history goes, 200 years is barely a heartbeat.  Yet look around you and see what has happened in that time - a whole new free people and a whole new free country, Australia.'

Sydney has never seen anything like it.  The look and the mood of the modern metropolitan city was transformed for the day.  There was a spirit of happiness, of good fellowship with whomever you were squashed next to in the throng or spontaneously danced with, a bond of knowing everyone was out in the streets to celebrate what we've got.

And many moments of wet-eyed emotional pride and lumps in the throat as the day's spectacles overawed, from the grand beauty of the Tall Ships to the exuberant explosion of fireworks at night.

It's significant Charles used the word 'free' twice when describing Australia and its people. In 1988, you could still say that two centuries before, 'a whole new free people and whole new free country, Australia' was created. In 2020 Scott Morrison changed the official words of the national anthem. No longer was Australia, 'young and free' - it was 'one and free'. He said he made the change to reflect Australia's indigenous past.

It was also on Australia Day in 1988 that Bob Hawke declared, 'We are, and essentially we remain, a nation of immigrants, a nation drawn from 130 nationalities. In Australia there is no hierarchy of descent: there must be no privilege of origin.'

There are approximately 530 councils across the country. This year, 81 local councils around the country cancelled or changed their Australia Day ceremonies from 26 January. Last month, one council, the City of Unley in Adelaide, voted 8-4 to reinstate Australia Day events on 26 January after a survey of 500 residents found 60% of residents supported the idea. One councillor who spoke against reinstating Australia Day celebrations on 26 January was Jennifer Bonham. According to news.com, she said that commemorating 26 January was like 'celebrating the holocaust'. That claim is so wrong and misguided at so many levels that nothing more needs to be said about it.

In my column I contrast today's 'second wave' republicanism with the 'first wave'.

It is permeated with identity politics, grievance, and the guilt of colonialism.

It's represented by people like former footballer, Craig Foster, who until recently was co-chair of the Australian Republican Movement.  In 2022, he told the National Press Club the country and its national identity had been shaped by 'xenophobia' and 'racism', and he hoped for a different Australia where 'the economy serves the people', and individuals were not discriminated against because of their 'gender, sexuality, ability [sic], colour, and race'. 

Nowhere did Foster talk of Australia being one of the world's oldest and most successful democracies.  He spoke passionately about what he believed to be Australia's ill-treatment of refugees, but he didn't pause to ask why refugees flee to Australia and not to somewhere else.  Foster made not a single positive reference to Australia.  A few months after that speech, he was elected to lead the Australian Republic Movement by a unanimous vote of its National Committee.

Australia's best chance of becoming a republic was probably in the 1980s.  If we ever recapture that 'spirit of happiness' and we again can celebrate 'what we've got', maybe Australians would vote to make their head of state an Australian.  Until that happens, Australia as a republic is a long way away. Maybe Australia will never be a republic.

At least Foster wasn't appointed the head of the Australian Republic Movement by the government. Someone who the Albanese government did appoint to an official role is West Australian artist, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah. In September last year, the arts minister, Tony Burke, appointed Abdullah to a three-year term on the Council of the National Gallery. Talking of the Australian Republic Movement…someone else who Burke appointed to the Gallery Council is Esther Anatolitis. She is co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement…    

The Australian has reported tonight on Abdullah's social media posts. This is some of the story.

A Labor-appointed member of the Council of the National Gallery of Australia has accused Israel of conducting a 'holocaust' against the Palestinian people, calling on Israel's opponents to 'end this sickness' and 'end Zionism.' 

The social media posts by artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah have accused Israel of committing genocide and apartheid and have included images of people burning, purportedly as a result of an Israeli missile strike in Gaza.  Each of the images were timed to disappear from Mr Abdullah's social media within 24 hours.

The Minister for the Arts Tony Burke appointed Mr Abdullah to the NGA Council in September last year, shortly before the Hamas terror attack on Israel of October 7 and Israel's subsequent war on Hamas in Gaza.

'It's essential that our important national cultural institutions have authentic leadership that reflects their objectives, as well as modern Australia,' Mr Burke said at the time.  'The National Gallery is one of our premier cultural institutions and I'm pleased to see it continue in safe hands.'

Mr Abdullah said in 2020: 'I appreciate that I live in a privileged part of the world, yet it's also a deeply belligerent, inherently bigoted and selfish country that continues to destroy the environment for profit, imprison asylum seekers and is unable to acknowledge the colonial framework of violence that still defines us.  Australians have this self image of being relaxed and easy going but we are consumed by institutional racism, government corruption and hard-edged politics.'

In his temporary Instagram stories, Mr Abdullah posted that 'Israel is conducting a holocaust against the Palestinian people.  End this sickness.  End Zionism.'  Another post stated: 'End the genocide, end apartheid, end Zionism.'

Anti-Semitism in Australia goes from the steps of the Sydney Opera House to the very top of what Tony Burke described as 'one of our premier cultural institutions'. Sometimes, when I write about the elites' hatred of Australia and its people, I fear I might be a bit too harsh. But then come along stories like Abdul-Rahman Abdullah. Abdullah is but one of eleven members of the Gallery Council. It will be interesting to see what those ten other members do. Abdullah shouldn't be 'cancelled', and he shouldn't be sacked. For various reasons, politically it would be impossible for the Albanese government to sack him anyway. Abdullah's opinions are despicable, but as far as we know at this stage, what he said is not unlawful. 

The most powerful thing the other ten members of the Council of the National Gallery of Australia can do is resign en masse. (That is, assuming they regard his views as I do, and as the vast majority of Australians would.)  Maybe before the council members resign they could attend one last meeting and ask Abdullah what he meant by his call to 'end Zionism'. 

Council members are free to associate or not associate with Abdullah, and it's their choice what they do. Ryan Stokes is the chair of the Council. In November last year, he was one of 600 Australians (including me) who put their name to an open letter in response to the rise of anti-Semitism after 7 October. The letter said, 'We are unequivocal in our resolve that racism in all its forms is deplorable and abhorrent. Whether directed towards Jewish Australians, Muslim Australians, Asian Australians, Indigenous Australians or any other minority, we will not tolerate such conduct in our workplaces and firmly reject it in our communities.'

As I mentioned the story about Abdullah has appeared tonight. Last night on the Australian Financial Review website an article went up with the headline ' 'In Australia they are spewing hate': Jewish Australians say it's safer in Israel'.

Jewish Australians are defying travel warnings to leave Israel, saying they feel safer staying put despite the persistent threat of rockets raining down rather than returning to Australia to confront rising levels of anti-Semitism.

Tami Rich, who moved to Israel 19 years ago for work and regularly visits her extended family in Sydney, ruled out coming back to Australia with her husband and three children, who enjoy dual citizenship.

While staying in Israel was more physically dangerous, she said air raid sirens that gave her 90 seconds notice to get to a bomb shelter; having a bomb shelter in her own home and the commitment of the Israeli police and army to protecting lives meant she felt safer there than in Sydney, where flags belonging to terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah were being flown in the street.

'Daily life is going on, although we are more cautious now.  But I feel quite safe here,' she said from her home near Haifa in Israel's north, which is bearing the brunt of Hezbollah's bombardment.

'But in Australia they are spewing hate.  It's not peaceful protests, there are anti-Semitic incidents all over Australia and the biggest problem is it's being tolerated.  It is tolerated by police and tolerated by governments.'

The same government that appointed Abdul-Rahman Abdullah to the Council of the National Gallery of Australia appointed Matt Thistlethwaite as 'Assistant Minister for the Republic'.

Thank you for your support.

kind regards John