Australian senators and MPs paid tribute to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on Friday as she returned from parliament, with some calling for a debate on Australia’s possible transition to a republic.
The leader of the ecological party, Adam Bandt, expressed his condolences for the death of the monarch, but reiterated his support for a republican regime.
Australia has “a new head of state who has nothing to say about it. This is the right time to talk respectfully about whether this is appropriate,” he said.
Elizabeth II’s eldest son, now King Charles III of England, was proclaimed Australia’s head of state on September 11, in a ceremony held in Parliament in Canberra.
“We can offer our condolences to those who mourn her personally, while also speaking respectfully about what this means to us as a people,” Bandt said.
Another green senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, spoke about the need for reconciliation with Australia’s Indigenous Peoples.
Elizabeth II “did not take children away from their parents, nor did she personally attempt to eliminate and decimate one of the world’s oldest cultures,” Hanson-Young told the Australian Senate.
However, the British monarch was formally the head of a state that did, the senator emphasized.
“The generations of oppression, trauma and suffering as a result of colonization must be recognized,” he added.
Last week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the country’s priority is to hold a referendum on the political rights of indigenous peoples, not replace the monarchy with a republic.
Although the leader of the centre-left Labor Party is a staunch Republican, Albanese has refused to get involved in the debate over possible regime change.
In 1999, Australians rejected becoming a republic in a referendum. However, polls taken before Elizabeth II’s death showed that the majority of Australians were in favor of ending the monarchy.
The republican question has reignited since the Albanian came to power in May, quickly appointing the country’s first “deputy minister of the republic”, suggesting another referendum could be held in the future.
After Elizabeth II’s death, the 73-year-old Charles III was officially proclaimed the new King of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth countries.
Among these countries, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, has already promised to call, within three years, a referendum on the transition to a republic.
Likewise, Belize and Jamaica had already shown this year their willingness to begin the transition to the republican regime.
In November, another Caribbean archipelago, Barbados, became a republic.
Source: TSF
