Keywords: Queen Elizabeth
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AUSTRALIA
- Ray Cassin
- 05 August 2013
14 Comments
It might be 70 years before the new prince becomes king. Take the long view and the absurdity of an independent nation retaining a foreign monarch as its head of state is instantly apparent. But it's absurd now, too, and for the same reasons. Yet until there are political leaders who are willing to treat the republic as a matter of urgency, it will remain in the too-hard basket.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 07 June 2013
66 Comments
There is no denying that our nation was forged by men and women who settled here from the UK. There is also no denying that men and women from other parts of the world came after them, and that there were countless generations here before them. Until monarchists can reconcile themselves with these facts then the image they hold of Australia is incomplete.
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RELIGION
- Philip Harvey
- 06 March 2013
14 Comments
It's hard to trace the rumour that Benedict's shoes were designed by Prada. Perhaps it was just a mischievous allusion to The Devil Wears Prada. Benedict is a wily fox, which is why we can be sure his red shoes were there to invite symbolic interpretations. Only thing is, red shoes have a life of their own.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Mary Manning
- 27 June 2012
9 Comments
It is February 1952. I am with friends at Jim's place when we hear the news that King George VI has died. A dark-haired boy I have not met before keeps looking across at me.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 22 June 2012
6 Comments
Constant rain, sullen skies and a scarcely articulate commentary did not deter the massive and sodden crowds or diminish the momentum of the Queen’s recent Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Only the bigger picture and the jaundiced eye of history could assign the event its comparative place in the great panoply of royal extravaganzas.
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AUSTRALIA
- Philip Harvey
- 01 June 2012
16 Comments
One curate in our parish claimed to dream about the royal family and believed everyone did. Any easy familiarity I had with an idealised royal family collapsed with the dismissal of the Whitlam government. Malcolm Turnbull is persuasive when he says in Australia there are now more Elizabethans than monarchists.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 30 May 2012
16 Comments
I went to the breakfast table, where my father was reading The Sun. I was just old enough to read, and knew a screaming headline when I saw one. THE KING IS DEAD. Sixteen months later Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. I told my mother I'd like to be the Queen. 'No, you wouldn't,' she declared.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 30 March 2012
4 Comments
I saw a gloved hand at the window and that was it. The experience turned out to be the one time when I saw the Queen 'in the flesh'. I had gone under duress, having even at that young age vestigial republican tendencies. A few weeks ago I went with more enthusiasm to see another Queen.
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AUSTRALIA
There is a story that the king, having learned surfing at Bondi, introduced the sport to Tonga. I asked if he was ever fearful of sharks. 'There is nothing to fear,' he said. 'Look them straight in the eye like this!' At which he squared his shoulders in a demonstration of regal might which I shall never forget.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ellena Savage
- 28 October 2011
22 Comments
The fact the Queen is a very nice lady doesn't negate her inherited privilege, her arbitrary powers, and the fact her reign isolates many Australians. There is a myth that Australia is a larrikin nation. But we are a nation not of provocateurs, but of conformists.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 26 October 2011
17 Comments
In a simpler time a visit from our head of state seemed to make us feel better about ourselves. Like many Australians, I hold dear the old lady, but have no fear that democracy will shatter when her life and the monarchy slowly come to their natural end.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 02 May 2011
17 Comments
Many argue that the holiness attributed to John Paul, who was beatified yesterday just six years after his death, is tempered by evil deeds that took place under his watch. Arguably, fast-tracking his route to sainthood is an offence against due process, as fast-tracking Prince William's route to the throne would be.
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