Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
Media Release  11th of November 2009

Fight for a Real Republic

Australians were right to instinctively reject the fraudulent Keating-Turnbull republic ten years ago, but Australia needs to become a real republic, declared Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood on the 10th anniversary of the Republic Referendum.

“I challenge all Australians: join the fight for a real republic,” Mr Isherwood said.

“A real republic is government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

“Those words are not just a nice sentiment; they are the principle of republican government, in which the purpose of government is to promote the common good of the people, and the sovereignty of government lies with the people.”

Mr Isherwood pointed to Australia’s own history, laid out in the CEC’s latest New Citizen newspaper report “The True History of the Founding of Australia”, which was shaped by the fight to become a republic:

“The British Empire hated the principles of the new American republic, and was determined to crush it, but many thousands of early Australians, especially among the convict population which included so many Irish political prisoners, were inspired by the United States, and aspired for Australia to become a republic too,” Mr Isherwood explained.

“Arguably Australia’s greatest founding father, the Rev. Dr. John Dunmore Lang, was a staunch republican who strived for the British colonies of Australia to become the ‘United States of Australia’.

“Tragically, the best opportunity to become a republic, in the 1890s, was lost, when the British played on racialist fears of yellow hordes from Asia, and Australians settled for Federation, under the Crown.

“As the Colonial Office made clear when they oversaw the writing of the Australian Constitution and its passage as an Act of British Parliament, entrenching the Crown’s control was the key to keeping the City of London’s financial control over Australia—what ‘old’ Labor hated as the ‘Money Power’.”

By 1999, Mr Isherwood observed, the major promoters of the “minimalist” republic push, Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull, were established agents for the same City of London-based Money Power, which is why they were determined to make sure that the republic proposal wasn’t for a president directly elected by the people.

“The Keating-Turnbull model put to the 1999 referendum was worse than a republic in name only—it sought to entrench the British Money Power’s control over Australia into perpetuity,” he said.

“They didn’t want direct-election, because it would make the executive answerable to the people, not the Money Power.”

He concluded, “Australians must realise it isn’t enough to reject the fraudulent republic, we must fight for a real republic, to free Australia from the City of London’s financial power, and establish Australian government on the principle of the common good.”

For the cutting edge of the fight to end the reign of the Money Power, watch LaRouche’s webcast, “The Great Change of 2009”, live at 5am AEDT, 12th November, at www.larouchepac.com (archived shortly thereafter).

ends

© Scoop Media