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Why can the French award Australians a knighthood but our Queen cannot?

By David Flint - posted Thursday, 16 October 2003


Then the Hawke government reversed the Fraser government's decision, and abandoned the knighthood, the AK and AD . In the meantime, the States continued to recommend imperial titles, a policy reversed whenever Labor came to power in a particular State. This "stop and go" practice irritated some politicians, including a Liberal Premier of New South Wales who claimed that The Queen herself thought that we should be consistent.

As a result, it was agreed by all States not to recommend any more imperial titles. This did not preclude the award of a personal honour from The Queen, for example the knighthood conferred on Sir David Smith, an award richly deserved.

But after that, it seems that advice may have been tendered to The Queen not to award personal honours at the level of a knighthood or its equivalent. So when Dame Roma Mitchell was in extremis, the Sovereign's personal award was given at a lower level than a former governor and most distinguished Australian would have once received. So awards which in other Realms are reserved for the recognition of the service which Dame Roma gave to the nation are to be recognised here by a lower award. This is undignified and does not make sense. It is time that advice was revoked, a point convincingly argued by one of Australia's leading academic authorities on matters political, John Paul.

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It is demeaning to Australians to receive awards at a lower level merely because some people have such an irrational hatred for knighthoods conferred by the Sovereign but not for knighthoods granted by foreign presidents.

The Sovereign, our Sovereign, should continue to be able to confer on Australians the highest awards -just as presidents of other countries can and do, without any criticism here and presumably with the approval of our governments.

After all, Australians should not only be able to receive knighthoods from foreign republics!

We should be able to recognize truly distinguished service, just as France and Italy do. This has long been convincingly argued in The Way Ahead, the newsletter edited by Malcolm Brooks, the former MP for the seat of Gosford on the New South Wales central coast.

Now to do this there is no need to restore imperial titles. The Order of Australia can accommodate these. And for those who bridle at the thought of titles being restored, there is no need that the award attract, in law or indeed in courtesy, any title whatsoever, such as "Sir" or "Dame".

But it would allow us to recognise distinguished service, just as so many countries do including many republics. Even for Australians!

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This article was first published in the Australians for A Constitutional Monarchy e-newsletter Hot News.



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About the Author

David Flint is a former chairman of the Australian Press Council and the Australian Broadcasting Authority, is author of The Twilight of the Elites, and Malice in Media Land, published by Freedom Publishing. His latest monograph is Her Majesty at 80: Impeccable Service in an Indispensable Office, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, Sydney, 2006

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