brianv wrote:
Do you think that it might be in some way connected to this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian ... ndum,_1999
I was very suspicious of the result then, even more so now! Oh, I'm in Ireland by the way, we have our red-necks here too, mostly they wear funny blue uniforms and drive around in ice-cream vans or something, and have been known to beat people with truncheons for protesting about the criminal
government supermarket managers we have running the country...into the ground.
PS. I've just read the "referendum" was held on 6/11/1999. Wakey wakey!!
Greeting in Ireland!
Hmm, that's an interesting correlation to draw, I think I see what you're saying. I don't know I'm that well positioned to answer that one, but here are a few things that come to mind...
I guess it depends on whether you're viewing the referendum results as 'genuine' or staged display of supposed democracy (i.e. was the outcome always to be a 'no' for the change), and then; whether TPTB had an interest in having Australia become a republic, or stay as a constitutional monarchy.
What I can say perhaps is that the Australian 'national identity' is a heavily anglo-celtic one, with supposed ideals of 'egalitarianism' and 'mate-ship', complete with cliches about its pub/sporting/under-dog culture, a pride in the 'ANZAC spirit', and phrases like 'the lucky country'. This identity was famously invoked constantly by the then prime minister John Howard (he of the 'children overboard' saga), who preached a singular and unified version of 'Australian-ness', and spoke out strongly of the need for 'new Australians of other cultural origins' to 'adopt our national culture and values'. So it was this kind of political rhetoric around 'cultural policy' that helped foster some of this very xenophobia to begin with. It should also be said that John Howard was known to be a fairly staunch monarchist, so in invoking these images of a unified [primarily middle class white] national identity, he would certainly have been espousing 'traditionalist values', which would naturally be 'pro-monarchy'. So, should we take the referendum as having been 'real', Howard and the Liberal government of the day would have been campaigning through cultural policy in favour of retaining ties to the British monarchy, which was, of course, the eventual outcome. Two years later, those same images of national identity came in very handy when it came to an over-reaction towards and rejecting of the non-white Muslim culture that had been tagged as 'responsible' for the 9/11 attacks, and our country also swallowed the official narrative, hook, line, and sinker.
So, it seems to me that, based on the rhetoric and messages of the day, that there was a fairly concerted and ongoing push towards a 'cheap unity' of national identity that was pro-monarchy, and translated well into heightened xenophobia and anti-Islam. I have at times wondered what financial channels might still exist between Australia as a member of the Commonwealth, and the British monarchy, i.e. whether there are long-standing and ongoing (likely hidden) streams of revenue that have been set up to flow back to the royal family from Australia's own revenues, some kind of a holdover from activities of the East India Trading Company. Should this be the case, certainly the 'royal PTB' would have a great interest in ensuring such a measure as decoupling itself from the monarchy and becoming a republic did not take place. (Although, one could probably argue that perhaps frauds of other kinds might become easier - I'm really just throwing ideas around at this point).
There is quite an interesting YouTube documentary that looks into some of these themes, called 'What the FUQ' - Frequently Unanswered Questions of the "Australian Government":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umVj5XQYAi8
Part of this doco - if I remember correctly (it's been a while since I watched it), is that the "Australian Government" is actually listed as a 'corporation' in Washington DC.
I'm not sure if any of this relates to the way you've been thinking about this area Brian, I hope it hasn't gone too off-topic in that sense! If you have another take further to this to add, please do so. Either way, I see your note of the referendum date 6/11/1999; flipping it upside down certainly does some interesting number things.